


A Shattering Of The Collective Linear Consciousness

by Nhitori



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-10 15:56:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5592343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nhitori/pseuds/Nhitori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hitori's given up on himself by now, but it isn't that easy.  He would gladly sacrifice himself if it meant the safety of everyone around him;</p><p>And does.  Each time he dies, after all, he goes back in time.  So surely, there's some timeline out there where everybody lives and is happy.  There must be.</p><p>Except... Maybe Isa Souma is standing in the way of that outcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey just so you know this gets better after the first two chapters so please give it a shot! Also it may seem that there's a lot of OCs in this, but after the timeline they focus in they're rarely seen or heard from again.

Isa… Souma.

Utsuro Ichijou was unsure of where he’d come across that name, where or how he’d found it and why it seemed to belong to him, and him alone. It was a strange and unique name and he couldn’t very well imagine that it could be anybody else’s, once it had come into his head. Rather, he didn’t want to allow that name to be anybody else’s. It was an interesting thing, and he had found it. Therefore, it was his.

He first stumbled across the name when he was only six years old, the age when anyone else would only just be beginning school… But he was already a first year in middle school instead. A great intellect was something to be lauded and cherished, and his parents had never given much thought to the idea of social adjustment. By the time he’d completed middle school, however, he had made up his mind to drop out entirely. There was nothing his parents could do to stop him. He wasn’t sure why, but they almost seemed to fear him.

A feeling deep within him said that they were horrid and ruthless, yet he could get them to do what he wanted. It was this same feeling that echoed in their own hearts and stirred them to fear a young child who was but their own flesh and blood. As innocent as he seemed, there was an aura about him which left a dreadful feeling hanging in the air wherever he happened to go. Rumors started around school that if anyone bothered him, they would disappear… Despite having no evidence or reason to think that.

In any case, it wasn’t the best environment for him. Hence why he’d made the decision to abstain from schooling along a regular curriculum until he was of a normal age to enroll in high school, and would do so then, and only then. He was ten years old at the time, so he had about four or five years off.

Three years into that time off, he started having dreams. Strange dreams, but what was strangest had to be just how much he remembered them. Usually he forgot his dreams within minutes of waking up, but these ones stuck with him. These ones… Repeated themselves, in an odd fashion.

The first one was on a Monday night. It was a dream where he was very small and afraid, and everything was bright, too bright. Warm, too warm. Above his head was darkness, and he always found his feet moving without him, stepping barefoot into the flames just to reach a closet, and hiding there. He always hid there, curled up on a pile of coats, eyes squeezed shut in fear of the warmth around until the door was broken down and he was found, rescued, but tragedy, he was the only survivor. The fire was set by an extremist group, and his parents had been killed. He felt nothing at all as they said this. No sadness, no anger, then he woke up. The dream repeated every Monday after that.

The second week, he dreamed Tuesday night as well. Much older now, older even than he actually was. Taller, but still… Fairly short, really. Shorter than he actually was. Again, he had no control. None at all. Every time he dreamed he walked the same path, even if he tried so hard not to. As the sun was setting, and though the dream occurred Tuesday nights, it was Friday. Friday was a special day. An important day. Nobody had ever been missing on a Friday… But in this dream, they always were. Every time he would arrive home to see blood, blood everywhere. No trace left behind of who or what had done it but an unfortunate knowledge that it had to be the same people who set that fire in the first dream. One child hiding in the closet, just like he himself had done in the first dream. One child alive and unharmed. A feeling of incredible despair.

The third week, Wednesday was added. He wasn’t moving at all this time, only reading over the medical section of a phonebook with a crushing feeling of desperation. Nageki… Nageki was sick. Nageki. His only family. He needed help, badly, but every one of these doctors had been incapable. Somebody. Anybody. Please help.

And on the fourth week, Thursday. Now he was running, running and afraid and it was so much like the first dream, there were flames again. Flames everywhere, but this time he didn’t care about his own safety, but he saw Nageki. Nageki, there in the fire and in so much danger, he was going to die if he couldn’t get to him in time and then he closed the door. He locked himself in and he said please. Please make sure there is nothing left of my body. Please live and be happy. And then Nageki was gone and Utsuro woke up.

The fifth week was Friday, and it seemed he had weekends off. In Friday’s dream, he really could control his actions, but the dream only lasted a minute. Not enough time to do anything, and he was always filled with this feeling. A desire… To kill Isa Souma. The first time he dreamed it, he thought it odd. Isa Souma had always been a name for himself, hadn’t it? The next week when he dreamed on Friday, he ran into the bathroom and looked in a mirror; what he saw there was not him. Not himself at all, but somebody with dark hair, brown eyes, freckles.

It was with this that Utsuro truly realized that he had become privy to somebody else’s life. Each of those… A horrible experience, but dreamland distanced him from it. Utsuro did not feel like he’d gone through any of those things himself, and was generally unaffected emotionally by the dreams… However, it did leave him curious. His subconscious couldn’t have possibly come up with something like that all on its own, after all.

These memories of a much more rotten world than the one he now lived in… Belonged to someone else entirely.

But how could that possibly happen?


	2. Chapter 2

At thirteen and ten weeks old, Utsuro Ichijou began researching the phenomenon of extra-sensory-perception, or ESP. It wasn’t any sort of real research, of course; he didn’t want his parents to get the impression that he was straying from his expected path. Of course, as soon as he was of a regular social age, he was going to high school. He predicted that he would be at the top of his class, and he was probably correct. Despite leaving school to catch up socially, he did review the curriculum already. Classes would only be a matter of regurgitating memorized facts which he had long locked into his mind.

The true teachings of high school would be whether he was capable of relationships with other people, friendly or otherwise. All the reading in the world couldn’t help him to grasp the concepts of friendship or loves, but at the very least he could imitate those books until he learned it in practice for himself. Lovers in novels were always so perfect, friends so nearly infallible. If he mimicked that, well, it could surely tide him over for a time.

In any case, he’d burn that bridge when he got there. His curiosity with the phenomenon of ESP was his most important concern at the moment, though he would hide it as nothing more than that mere curiosity which he portrayed towards anybody who asked. As he really got into focusing on the articles he was reading, it was strange. Certain articles seemed off to him; writings that were artifacts. Imprints on the world from some other time, information that the world needed and would thus become a constant in the shifting sands of time…

What was most useful to him were the articles which felt new. Forum testimonies from people who claimed to be getting strange repetitive dreams, which seemed so very real. Theories of this world being an afterlife of sorts, a continuation from the lives they all once led. Of course nobody could tell at first, because it was just the same as living all over again, but if it really was the beginning, then where were all these memories coming from? Reincarnation seemed off the table, seeing as for every person who reported someone else’s memories, there were three more saying they had dreams of their own lives which had, as far as they could tell, never actually happened.

One story that was buried deep in these forums particularly intrigued Utsuro. Somebody said that they’d never had dreams of anybody’s life, but one day met someone who recognized them as the person they’d been dreaming about the whole time. Someone in their very own town… and someone who played a role in their own dreams, despite not being the main character in the story being told while they slept.

And the reason that the dreamer themself wasn’t posting… Was because they’d killed themself upon realizing just how awful they must have been in their last life, with all these memories of somebody else being hurt. Reading this story really closed the idea for Utsuro. Isa Souma… It really was him, and he must have had some role to play in those other awful dreams to make that furious killing intent so strong each Friday night. Yet, even with this knowledge, he did not feel the guilt which must have been expected of him. It wasn’t like he’d really done anything wrong, it was only an image of himself from a past he only remembered through the eyes of a victim. If he knew what he’d done it may have been a different story, but even then, he couldn’t see into his own memories. He didn’t know what reason he may have had to do whatever it was; for all he knew, the person whose memories he had deserved all of those things that had happened to him.

The one thing which was perfectly clear, however, was that Utsuro Ichijou… or, Isa Souma… he was an esper. Despite being a clear portmanteau of ESP-er, it was pronounced entirely differently. While ESP pronounced each letter seperately, esper was only a two syllable word, and it was an interesting title to have. If there was one thing that he enjoyed, it was building up titles. He planned to one day get several PhD’s just so that he could be titled.

So far, it seemed, he was only a prodigy, a genius, and an esper. Not nearly enough titles at all… he’d have to try very hard to earn at least one superlative when he finally got around to high school. With this new discovery, he was very anxious to begin, however… he needed to wait, just a little while longer, until he was at the age of an average first year. Being younger, well, that had proven in the past to inhibit his social potential greatly.

Life went on as usual from that point forward. He continued to have those dreams, and continued to do research, and the pattern was only broken on one particular night, just a few days before his birthday, although… he didn’t believe the two events to be in any way connected. Rather, it was just a coincidence of how close the dates were to each other…

December eighth. That was it, that was the night that the regular patterning of dreams was broken by one much more surreal. It started with the sound of a clock somewhere, but that couldn’t be quite right. There were no clocks in the other dreams, or at least, none which sounded out the hours like this one did. It was four in the afternoon, but it was much more like the evening at this time of year, and when his eyes fell out upon the world outside through the sliding glass door onto the apartment’s balcony, the sun was setting and turning the sky a lovely shade of pink.

Despite the brightness and the beauty, however, that evening felt completely dark. The fourth chime of the grandfather clock in the corner of an apartment which clearly wasn’t his drained out, and he discovered again that he was not in control of his body during this dream, just like most of the others. He turned around, only to see somebody else standing there. A blonde man, and he was flooded with emotions. Guilt, mostly; and though in his insertion to the dream he lacked the memories to explain the other feelings of attachment and despair, they were there. And, that singleminded desire from the one dream he could control.

Kill Isa Souma… it still filled his head, and determined his behavior. He put a back down on the ground, a bag from a pharmacy, though not everything in it was from the same trip to the pharmacy. No drug store would sell, in good conscience, such a cocktail of pills as he somehow knew that bag held. Once it found its place on the ground, he stood up straight again and held out his hand. The blonde took it, then stepped closer, and then they were hugging each other with some sort of desperation between them before moving to the side.

There were words passed between the two, but even as Utsuro felt his… or, well, this person whose memories he was reenacting’s lips move, he couldn’t hear a thing they said, couldn’t make out the words or understand even how he was speaking himself, until the sun fell behind the hills and the night turned less beautiful, because the city lights kept the stars from view and made the night sky seem stark and uninviting, and neither of them turned on a light in the apartment as he knelt down and grabbed the bag, only to drop from his knees into a more regular sitting position as the blonde joined him on the floor, cupping his hands and looking him in the eyes, crying.

Utsuro felt, that he almost didn’t do it. That he almost bundled the bag back up and ran out to that balcony and pitched them off of it into that empty and awful world outside of the apartment, but he couldn’t do that. He poured out two portions of the inacceptable mix, chosen carefully, oh so carefully, to be painless. Put one of those portions into the blonde’s hands, and one into his own mouth-

Then spit them out. Held them there long enough to touch his tongue and taste disgusting, but until the other had swallowed his share, he just put up with it until he could retch onto the carpet and get to his feet, feeling as if he’d just stabbed himself in the heart as Utsuro finally heard the words which passed between the two.

“Call an ambulance!” The blonde pleaded.

“They won’t come,” The man whose life Utsuro occupied said, and though his words were cruel the way he said them was soft and warm, “This is the end of the world. It belongs to me and you alone.”

And when Utsuro woke up, he didn’t feel a thing. Again, those were not his memories, and any feelings he felt while there weren’t his at all. Those emotions belonged to whoever it was that Utsuro saw in the mirror, that one time which he checked. Not him at all, and he really couldn’t care less. The dreams were an inconvenience, and this particular dream only occurred that one time. December eighth. It hadn’t before, and it didn’t again, at least, not in any time that he was aware of. After all…

He wasn’t so sure, once he started school, when he’d next be seeing December at all. The sight of somebody with dark hair, and freckles, and all other features matching those in the dream’s mirror, informed him of that fact on his very first day of high school.

“Hitori Uzune?”

“Present.”

And as Utsuro stared holes into Hitori’s back, he turned around, and their eyes met, and Utsuro could tell just from the way that Hitori looked at him.

He knew.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’re Isa Souma, aren’t you?” A breathy voice sounded out behind Utsuro, and he turned around to see exactly who he expected to. He’d planned on approaching Hitori during lunch regardless, but it was convenient that the man in question had taken the initiative upon himself.

“Let’s talk elsewhere,” He answered, taking a detour up the stairs by the cafeteria and walking off to the side to find one of the corridors that nobody ever walked down. During classes it might be occupied by students doing drugs or having sex, things that were both very frowned upon but shockingly common in a high school environment. On the first day of school, however, they’d abstain from their unscrupulous activities out of respect, fear, or a false resolution to do better this year; thus opening these secretive areas to private discussions. Utsuro had examined a blueprint of the school before enrolling, of course. Hitori followed, silent with his hands in his pockets.

“Smells nasty in here…” He muttered as he slid down the wall till he was sitting on the ground, then looked up at Utsuro, “Isa Souma. You… I thought you’d be older than me.”

“Why’s that?” He raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms as he sat down as well. Sat… Was an overstatement. He crouched, not wanting to touch anything in this admittedly filthy corridor. None of the filth was visible, but Hitori was right. It smelled awful.

“Because that’s how it is in the dreams I used to get. You must get something like them too, you were staring at me all damn class,” He scoffed slightly, picking at his fingernails.

“Used to get? They stopped? What were yours about?” Utsuro questioned, sounding slightly more curious than he usually did.

“I met a boy named Nageki Fujishiro. When I did, I discovered the memories belonged to him. He forgave me, and the dreams stopped. Pretty simple. I was standing in his shoes… And he needed to watch me do all these awful things in his name, after he died. How’d he die? That’s where you came in. He committed suicide, but it was your fault,” Hitori shrugged, “That’s the past, though. Not so important anymore. Nageki forgave me for going against his wishes and trying to get revenge… Because it was the past. A past life, or something. Whatever the case, the memories don’t matter now. Nothing… really matters. It was about a month ago, that I spoke to Nageki… technically speaking.”

“I see… In my dreams, I’m… You. And I want to kill… Me. I’m not quite sure why, but… Nageki…” He hesitated a bit, then sighed, “I can’t honestly say I care, however, I would appreciate not having these dreams in which I am forced to experience your crude emotions… Such as mourning for this boy,” Then he blinked and looked at Hitori kind of sideways, “Why are you so willing to tell me all of this, anyhow? You seem like a stodgy person, and you clearly don’t like me very much…”

“It’s simple, really. It doesn’t make any difference what I say to you, or anybody,” He sighed, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling, breathing through his mouth to try and avoid smelling the environment quite as much, “After all… I can just go back.”

“Go back…?” Isa questioned, then got to his feet, glaring down at Hitori, “Well, that’s just ridiculous. You can’t have two different types of ESP…”

“Who says?” Hitori shrugged, “Besides, I only have the one now anyway. Got rid of the dreams a few timelines back… last month… in that timeline. Of all the things that reset when I go back, that wasn’t one of them. Besides, it’s not like it’s all that great to begin with. You said the dreams annoyed you… resetting isn’t any better.”

“I can’t imagine that the ability to go back in time wouldn’t be an incredibly useful one…” Utsuro trailed off, scowling, “Just the luck of the universe that somebody like you would be the one to get it… so tell me, Uzune. Just how many times have you met me before?”

“I can’t say. This is the first time I’ve gotten this far,” He shrugged, “I always go back… to half past midnight, on New Year’s. It changes every year, so I don’t get sent back too far, at least,” He shrugged, reaching into his pocket and coming up with… a piece of paper? Utsuro was 90% expecting drugs. He unfolded it and stared at it, then pulled out a pencil and erased something on it, writing in something else, “It really is pretty useless.”

“How? How could that possibly be useless?” Utsuro demanded to know, crouching down to look at the paper. Numbers that probably could only ever make sense to the person who wrote them, given the utter lack of labels.

“Well for one thing, I go back every time I die. Given how often I’ve gone back, that really tells you a lot, doesn’t it? And the other thing,” He started chewing on his eraser as he glared at the paper, “Fuck, I’ve erased this so many times...”

“Why don’t you just get another piece of paper?” Utsuro asked matter-of-factly, and received a harsh glare in response.

“It doesn’t work like that. I need to be able to keep track of things through the different timelines, and only one object will come with me…” He sighed,” Which I discovered completely by accident when I happened to fold up a piece of paper and stick it in my shirt pocket directly prior to perishing… it’s nice to be able to take notes, but one piece of paper is really…”

“I see. What are you taking notes on anyway? What’s happening in these numbers?” He narrowed his eyes, trying to make sense of anything on the paper.

“Statistics,” He answered simply, “Also known as the reason why resetting isn’t useful at all. See, I guess I can explain it best like this… Say, there’s a fifty percent chance that you’ll get hit by a bus while walking home today. If you started this day over, there would still be a fifty percent chance, regardless of if it ended up happening or not. I’ve worked out the probabilities of certain events happening in any given timeline… At this point, I could predict with absolutely accuracy up until last week what would happen to me. Although, that knowledge couldn’t really change anything.”

“But even that’s useless to you now, given that you’ve never reached this point before, right?” Utsuro questioned, and Hitori nodded slightly, “Well in that case, why don’t I buy you a phone? You can put it in the same pocket you had the paper in, and maybe that will go with you instead. It would be more efficient for note-taking…”

“Why would you do that?” Hitori questioned, staring straight through him, “You only just met me, and you don’t seem to be a very charitable person.”

“Well, you don’t seem to be all too pleasant yourself. The fact is, if I do something for you then you might not be so loathe to explain all this to me again next time we meet,” Utsuro chuckled softly, “Don’t worry, it’s not for any reason as ridiculous as feeling bad for what happened to you in your past life. You did some pretty awful things anyway, so if anything my opinion of you should be lower out of knowing…”

“I can’t imagine why you’d have any positive opinion towards me at all,” Hitori sounded fairly lackluster as he stood up, “And… I’ve had enough of you. I think I’d rather not meet you after all, Isa Souma…” As soon as he said this, he took off at a sprint to the nearest stairwell, climbing up at top speed to the third floor. He wasn’t particularly athletic, but Utsuro was worse, and couldn’t catch up to him at all before he pitched himself over the banister of the top landing.

-=-=-=-=-

“...Well it looks like that plan of yours failed,” Utsuro chuckled softly, meeting Hitori’s eyes. He was crouched in front of him again, and Hitori was just staring right at him, looking incredibly confused and concerned.

“Why am I… here…?” He wondered out loud, grasping at the edges of his own jacket then scowling, “And how do you-”

“Remember? I’m not sure. None of this makes sense, honestly, but that clearly did just happen. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I have your memories? Now that we’ve met, it seems that we are, on some level, connected…” He paused, then reached forward and snatched the paper out of Hitori’s pocket, unfolding it to take a look himself and trying to see if he could figure out what any of it meant… but, he couldn’t, so it was utterly useless. He pulled a match out of his pocket and set it on fire.

“I really don’t think you’re supposed to bring matches to school…” Hitori muttered, crossing his arms protectively over his chest, but didn’t protest as his cheatsheet was burned up. He doubted it would be of any use to him now, if this moment speaking to Isa was actually a new checkpoint for his… resets.

“Well, it’s been years since I was last in a school, so pardon me if I’m not quite well-aware of what I should and shouldn’t do in regards to what I bring with me. Come on. If you’re done trying to forget the fact you met me, that is.”

“Come on? Where?” Hitori questioned, standing up again and brushing off the front of his shirt.

“Simple,” Isa was already walking away, and Hitori picked up the pace to catch up to him, “We’re ditching and getting you a phone to start taking notes on from this point forward. I can’t imagine that will be the last time you go back,” Isa narrowed his eyes, “Given that you said you had everything up to a week ago down to a science, I can’t imagine that you’d suddenly start living any less dangerously than you were before… Therefore, notes would still be something useful.”

“Who’s to say I’ve been living dangerously?” He questioned, shoving his hands into his pockets again and scowling.

“Well, clearly you aren’t living all too safely if you’ve repeated the same timeline so many times. Honestly, even repeating it once is proof enough, seeing as it means that you _died_.”

“Still doesn’t mean I’m living dangerously. There’s certain things that I’m statistically at a higher risk for, for example, and I’m at risk of each of those things in every single timeline…” He shrugged, “I’d say about… Half and half, when it comes to resets on purpose. Really the only thing that resetting is good for… Is avoiding conversations. Even schoolwork isn’t necessarily the same each time. And now, not even that much, since I’m stuck with you…”

“Oh, don’t be like that. Shouldn’t you be thrilled to finally have a comrade in this? Though I must say, it’s rather obnoxious and inconvenient for me. I’ll have to do everything several times over, getting dragged along with you…” He grimaced, “How idiotic. Please, do try not to reset purposefully so much in the future. It will make things very difficult for me.”

“What makes you think I care about convenience on your part? I do not want you involved in this. I would much prefer nobody had any memory of the things I did on spare timelines,” Hitori grumbled, eyeing Isa scrutinously.

“Ah. I see. In works of fiction, generally, espers are glad for somebody knowing what they go through in all the timelines that end up being erased. I expected at the very least some sort of gratitude on your part, that I will comprehend your plight in full…”

“Well, I’m afraid that’s not the case, because you’re an unpleasant person…”

“You’re not so great yourself,” Isa shrugged, “I’m apathetic, and you’re abrasive. We’re going to be stuck together, because nobody else will put up with us.”

“I’m not sure I appreciate that sentiment. Who says that nobody else will put up with me, anyway? I mean, in your case it’s a given, but I’ll have you know I’m generally well-liked.”

“If you’re generally well-liked, why did you find a seat in the classroom as isolated as possible? Why did you come speak to me instead of socializing at lunch? Why did you reset after speaking with Nageki?” He spoke now out of simple scientific curiosity towards social behaviors, although he was also well aware it could come across as rude. He didn’t care.

“I…” He hesitated, “I didn’t reset after speaking with Nageki. I got killed, and I didn’t want to go through all the trouble of trying to meet him again… and, I’ve had falling outs with any friends I did have. Not that they’re aware of it at this point, but I’m pretty sure they caught on when I completely stopped hanging out with them.”

“Well, if the falling outs were forgotten, why wouldn’t you go on speaking with them in the new timeline?” Isa questioned.

“Why the Hell would I want to?” Hitori growled under his breath, slouching down even more.

“Well, wouldn’t that be the reason you reset? To go back to a time when you had a more pleasant social standing, and avoid causing the same issues with your friends?”

“Hey, what makes you assume that it was my fault? I’m the fucking victim here. My so-called friends betrayed me, so I’m going to stay far away from them from now on… Besides, this was all last year. I couldn’t change anything now, even if I wanted t-” He froze as Isa reached out and grabbed his wrist, staring at him blankly for a few seconds before smirking.

“Ah, I was wondering if I could do this to you…”

“Do what!?” Hitori hissed, ripping his arm away.

“If I touch you while you’re thinking about a certain event, it seems that I can take a look at your memory,” He said simply, “In… minimal terms, that is. So your friend ‘outed’ you in middle school? What exactly is that supposed to mean? There are plenty of things that could be revealed to a group of people in a negative light.”

“Like I’m going to tell you,” He glared at Isa, crossing his arms, “And like Hell I’m going to let you do that again, either! There’s this little thing called secrets that are better kept under wraps…”

“I’m sure you have quite a lot of those,” Isa shrugged as they stepped out of the school’s door. Later in the year when the faculty remembered just how prone people were to ditching, there would be teachers stationed there to prevent these things, but at the moment sneaking out was an incredibly easy feat. The nearest electronics store was actually just across the street from the school, though thanks to the crosswalk being a good quarter mile up the road, it was a much longer trek than it should have been.

Isa seemed unwilling to jaywalk. A suitable concern, given that Hitori seemed to be some sort of disaster magnet, at least from what he’d seen and heard thus far. It would really be ridiculous if he could never even manage to get ahold of the item to take notes on, after all. Being the son of important political figures, Isa easily had money to spend on getting a phone for Hitori. While the registration was busy being set up, he pulled out his phone to check the forums and maybe finally make a post of his own now that he’d experienced an example of ESP that was clearly a much bigger deal than his own nightmares.

There was a post pinned at the top of the forum. ‘Chugoku Region Esper study!’ which certainly caught Isa’s eye, given that he was currently in the Chugoku Region. He clicked on the post to get the details and discovered that it was made by a trusted source. Takaba Labs, which was rather infamous for conducting experiments that nobody would consider useful. For example, putting extra mouths on things. Functional extra mouths. Despite the odd uselessness of that, it was a testament to their capabilities, and the strangeness made it entirely plausible that they would want to conduct a study on ESP.

It was… very unlikely, that Isa could get Hitori to agree to sign up for the program, however. He’d have to tread very carefully about this; he wanted to learn as much as he could about his and Hitori’s abilities, after all, so he couldn’t just pass up an opportunity like this. Luckily for him, he still had those political ties, and that money, so it only took a few private messages (thanks to a moderator being online) to get a branch of the study as a special class at his school.

Now, all he had to do was wait for tomorrow, when every esper in the school would be called into a classroom and informed by adults who knew what they were doing exactly what this ESP thing was. Besides… it might also serve to introduce Isa to some espers who were more tolerable than Hitori Uzune, and that was always something to appreciate.

He was only assuming, that it would be easy enough to figure out who among the student body were espers when the experts-in-training came in. Of course, this was also assuming… that he and Hitori would even make it through till tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

“Could Hitori Uzune, Utsuro Ichijou, Yuuya Sakazaki, Mayu Tsukishima, Ryouta Kawara, Rin Kamiya, and Ayano Ueda please report to the main office immediately?” The intercom crackled with static as an unfamiliar voice floated over it on the second day of Isa Souma’s first year of high school. He didn’t expect that he wouldn’t experience this same day several times in the future, but for now it was a novel experience.

Especially considering he wasn’t sure he would go through the trouble of setting things up to ever hear this announcement again. A strange look from Hitori as the both of them stood up and made their way out of homeroom proved that he was suspicious of the both of them being called for anything, given that the only things they seemed to have in common were ESP and their homeroom class; and it couldn’t much be the latter, given that none of the others were from their homeroom.

Yuuya Sakazaki was from one of the other first year classes; Ueda and Tsukishima were second years, and the remaining others were third years. Isa didn’t know any of this, but Hitori did. Hitori knew a lot of things; just because he hadn’t previously gotten to high school didn’t mean he wouldn’t know things. He had been in this same school system for years, many more years than anybody probably would usually, if he added up all of the timelines he’d traversed over the years.

Isa had to wonder, how exactly Hitori had even discovered this talent. When was the first time that he’d died, only to wake up some time earlier? How had he died? Did it have anything to do with those secrets he’d mentioned? These were all questions that Isa found himself pondering thanks to his natural curiosity, and not at all because he actually gave a damn about Hitori in general… Though he supposed it may be best if he attempted to garner some level of attachment to him, if they were going to be stuck together like this.

Then again, that really seemed like a bother. In any case, once reaching the main office along with everybody else who had been called down, Isa found himself being led into what was usually an unused classroom by a man who was wearing a lab coat, and a rather professional looking suit… although, the ensemble was entirely ruined by the slippers on his feet. Once in the room, he stepped to the front of the room and crossed his arms.

“Ryouta? Sakazaki? Could you please come to the front of the room with me? The rest of you can have a seat!” The man spoke brightly, and the two he had requested went to stand with him, “Now, why don’t you two introduce yourselves? I’m sure you both know why I’ve got you standing up here with me!”

“Well, uh, I’m Ryouta Kawara. This is my dad… I guess for convenience, you can all call me Ryouta, and Kawara will be him?” Ryouta spoke simply, pointing at his dad as he spoke.

“What a good idea! In fact, why don’t you all get on first name basis with each other as soon as possible? It well help to strengthen your bonds and intensify the level of your abilities!” Ryuuji interjected brightly, “Ah… I didn’t explain that yet, did I?”

“You didn’t, Doctor!” Yuuya chuckled a bit, putting a hand on his hip before introducing himself, “Yuuya Sakazaki at your service! See, I entered an esper training program when I was thirteen, and Doctor Kawara here was the head of it! And now he’s here to bring his fantastic knowledge to the lucky few here at this school!”

“It’s awfully convenient that it happens to be my school…” Ryouta mumbled, looking away, “Well, I’ve been practicing since I was really little, anyway. So if anyone wants advice from other espers, Sakaz- er, Yuuya and I are the people to ask. My dad’s just here for the technical aspects, and also to study the phenomenon and all… right?”

“Sounds about it, son!” Ryuuji nodded, before turning his attention in full to everybody seated, “Well then, let’s go around and you can all talk about what your abilities seem to be! We picked you all in a very extensive data-mining process, so there’s no way we’re mistaken…”

“Data-mining…?” Hitori muttered under his breath, mostly to himself, partially to Isa, but Isa wasn’t the one who overheard him, instead seeming to be completely engrossed in whatever Ryuuji was prattling on about now. More details about the program, maybe. Hitori was ignoring him now for fear of hearing anything else he wouldn’t want to.

“Yeah,” The girl who overheard him leaned over, nodding. One of the second-years, she had black hair pulled into low pigtails and gray eyes which sat behind red glasses. Something about her was unsettling, “It’s a process where people go through your personal information for certain buzzwords, to learn things about you… though, I can’t say that they might not read more than they need to for the info…” She whispered, “I know I would.”

“Ueda…” Hitori groaned quietly, inching away from her. They’d never really spoken before, but she was infamous around school for being slightly terrifying, and he wanted no part in that.

“Oh come on, Hitori. Doctor Kawara just said we should be on first name basis with each other! Call me Ayano.”

“Ahem!” Ryuuji cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention again, “Why doesn’t Ryouta start us off?”

“Okay! Uhm, well you already know I’m Ryouta. I’m a third year, and I’m able to predict potential futures! Usually a pool of five to ten, and they’re loose scenarios, it’s not like I’m all-knowing.”

“Yuuya Sakazaki! I’ve only ever executed mine in simulations, but I’m able to jump between timelines, but… I can only jump into certain timelines. I have to have a purpose in mind, and I can only jump to timelines where I can execute that purpose. For example, I want to go to a timeline where I don’t fail my chemistry exam; I can only go into a timeline in which I actually studied.”

“Uh… Rin Kamiya. I can repeat the past five minutes in time, just… at will. I can only do it a few times a day, though, so I try to save it for when I really need it.”

“Mayu Tsukishima! I can do the same thing as Rin!” She turned and winked at him, “I use it to catch up on sleep! The minutes can stack, you know.”

“That seems like a very useless way to-” Kamiya started to comment, but was cut off.

“I’m Ayano Ueda! I can… know things. I’m not sure how but I do. I know alllll sorts of things,” She chuckled a bit, glancing around the room, then glaring a bit at Isa, then Yuuya even more, “I know things about all of you…”

“That’s terrifying!” Ryuuji noted, just as brightly as anything else he’d previously said.

“I’m… Hitori Uzune. I go back to a certain point in time anytime I die,” Hitori introduced himself, hesitantly, “You might think this is useful, but it really isn’t at all, because every time it happens the subsequent timeline is different. I never know what’s going to happen, so it’s not uncommon for me to be hurt very badly, several times over in different timelines, and then I can’t even die. It doesn’t end, so it isn’t useful.”

“Way to ruin everyone’s mood, Hitori…” Ayano stated flatly, then leaned closer to him again and whispered, “Hey, in any of those timelines, have you and I ever dated? I’m just curious.”

“No, and it’s never gonna happen,” Hitori muttered, pushing her back towards her own desk, “Besides. I’ve never even gotten as far as high school before, so I’m just as new to it as anyone else here.”

“And… I’m Utsuro Ichijou, but I’d prefer to be called Isa Souma. It’s a name that I feel I had for much more of my life, despite… clearly not having it now. I don’t seem to be capable of anything specific on my own, but I have dreams of Uzune’s… memories? I guess. And I can occasionally read his mind, in attention to being dragged back in time with him whenever he dies.”

“Ah, what a great segue into our next topic! See, this is a phenomenon known as esper pairing! It occurs occasionally. See, sometimes dreams about past lives don’t mean much of anything. They’re returned to the original owners, then you move on… but sometimes, they can be an indicator of esper pairing, a phenomenon where an otherwise unskilled person is linked to the ESP of another. In this case, it’s forming a close mental connection as well as including your consciousness when his returns to a prior point in time. If Ryouta was to pair with somebody, chances are that he would be able to communicate with the future version of that person and try to guide them onto the best path that he sees as a potential future. Yuuya would probably bring the paired party into new timelines with him!”

“What was that you said just now, about the past life memories? Do you know anything else about how that could possibly work?” Isa questioned, speaking with his hand raised and not waiting for permission to speak.

“Ah yes! A very fascinating topic! It seems that, this is another dimensional plane entirely, from the last one we were on! As in, every one of us had a past life! How it works exactly is… debatable. After all, with the information we’ve been able to pin down, it wouldn’t make sense for parents who outlive their own children… but, from what we understand, your birthday is actually the day that you died in your past life! And your relative age actually depends on when you died. For example! For all we know, in your past lives, half of you could be elderly and the other half babies, but you died at the same time, so you’re the same age now! Those dreams are, of course, experiences from a past life.”

“Is there any way to find out more about our past lives?” Mayu asked, speaking with her hand raised and looking somewhat amazed.

“I’m glad you asked that! People say, that your phobias are based on the way that you died in a past life. So how about you all say what you’re afraid of? In terms of phobias, that is, not in terms of things that everyone should be afraid of, like being murdered while walking alone at night, or discovering that the food you ate an hour ago was actually expired, and that interesting flavor was actually mold. Let’s go in reverse order, starting with you, Isa!”

“Me?” Isa asked, frowning and dipping his head slightly, “I can’t say I’m particularly scared of anything. Decay, maybe,” He shrugged, “Or starving, but isn’t that a normal fear?”

“Chances are,” Ayano interjected, “You starved to death and it took a long time for anybody to find your body to boot. Maybe you were stranded in the wilderness!”

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Isa spoke softly and simply, sounding calm despite what his words were, “I feel like it was a more domestic situation, and I feel as if it was entirely my fault. Perhaps somebody was supposed to be taking care of me, and I compromised that. Well then, Uzune? You would be next, though I’m not sure how accurate it would be given the number of times that you have died before…”

“It would be completely inaccurate. I’ll just skip,” He agreed with Isa, but a sideways glance back towards him made it obvious there was something he was hiding, and deduction could allow Isa to realize it. Hitori was… afraid of him. Well, if Hitori was as annoying in a past life as he was now, Isa certainly wouldn’t put it past himself to kill him.

“I’m afraid of heights and I’m not going to try to read any further into that. I’d definitely prefer not to know the details of my death in any way, even potential. I mean, unless I got murdered… that’d be pretty cool,” Ayano took her turn without being prompted, as did Mayu immediately following.

“I’m scared of spiders, and snakes, and basically anything poisonous.”

“I’m terrified of the ocean,” Kamiya said next.

“It seems that I share Ms. Tsukishima’s… er, Mayu’s fear of poisons. I also can’t really say that I’m particularly fond of medical things, eheh!” Yuuya noted, then turned to Ryouta and nodded for him to go.

“I’m just scared of illness… I must have died pretty naturally,” Ryouta shrugged, then looked around the room, “Which… seems out of place, compared to the rest of you. I really hope that your past lives weren’t too bad…”

“Well, that’s all in the past now!” Ryuuji piped in, leaning forward on his desk and grinning, “Now, we’re all going to be good friends and teach you all new things about your abilities! And maybe you’ll even make a great cool team someday, for some reason! I don’t know what that could possibly be, but that’s always what ends up happening in the movies, and wouldn’t that be exciting?” He turned to his son, still beaming, “Wouldn’t it be, Ryouta? You’d be famous! Everyone would! They’d make brand new movies all /about/ you!”

“I’m pretty sure that in those movies, the people saving the world are instructed specifically by the government to save the world in secret, so…” Ryouta chuckled awkwardly.

“Ah, well… moving on! Some of you are probably wondering why you have these powers! Well, sorry to say, it isn’t magic. Magic does not exist. In actuality, it seems that your brains function in a different way than other people’s! There’s a phenomenon known as morphogenetic field, implying that our brains are all in some way connected, through the entire world. Takaba’s research actually supports this theory! When people happen to kick into the morphogenetic field in our tests, their brain waves started to look different. You lot, on the other hand… well, your brainwaves behave in this way on a constant basis! Which means that you are always tuned in to this worldwide wealth of knowledge, and therefore, you are able to do things like see different futures, read each other’s minds, and most spectacularly, throw yourself to the mercy of time!”

“Well, the first two things make sense, but… how does this actually relate to time in any way? How exactly, does that happen?” Kamiya, one of the impacted parties, questioned.

“Well see, that’s relating to multiverse theory! Basically, when you do these things, you’re not actually making a real change to anything. You’re just experiencing a shift in consciousness! There are infinite worlds out there with infinite possibilities. When you or Tsukishima goes back five minutes, you are actually taking over the mind of a you from another universe where everything is the same except time there is five minutes behind time where you left from. Now, we can’t really simulate it perfectly, but when Sakazaki jumps it’s much more clear that he’s going somewhere with different events… Even the things he did before jumping can be different. And when Uzune is killed, it just means that instead of doing what it’s supposed to do when it dies, his consciousness goes to the nearest possible universe, honing in on one particular time and previous set of events.”

“What… happens to the timelines that we leave…?” Mayu questioned, tilting her head, “If our consciousnesses are gone…”

“Well, we don’t know anything about that, actually! Because, right now, we’re just in the same timeline as you! I don’t know if it’s even possible to be in a timeline that’s been left behind… Except maybe in Uzune’s case,” Ryuuji shrugged, “The way his jumps work, there are probably lots of timelines carrying on just as usual, except that he’s dead. As for anything else, we have no clue! It’s really hard to research this sort of thing!” A sound started on his last word, then he shut up to let it finish, “Ah, that’s what the bell sounds like here, isn’t it? Well, you should go back to your classrooms, but you have to come here during your elective period from now on, okay? You Gotta.”

Once they’d left the room, Hitori frowned and leaned over to Isa, “Listen. There’s no way that they datamined anything on me, because I don’t use the internet. Ever. Or any goddamn electronics, because I can’t. The most I’ve ever done is use school computers to write essays… therefore, I’m going to work on the assumption that the only way they knew that I was an esper was because you. Told them.”

“Me…?” Isa questioned, holding a hand to his chest in mock offense and practically batting his eyelashes in a ridiculous show of obvious guilt, “Whyever would I do that?”

“Same reason you’d kill me in a past life,” Hitori shrugged, grimacing, “You’re awful. Whatever,” He shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets as he turned off in the opposite direction, “Have fun in class.”

“You’re ditching again? So you’re that type of student,” Isa said simply, closing his eyes and sighing, “Very well. Who am I to tell you not to ruin your future?”

“What the hell do you think the chances are that I’m going to have a future? I’ll definitely have opportunites to not skip this class some other time,” Hitori sighed as well, turning as he stood in the middle of the hallway to look at Isa again. People trying to get back to class from their elective blocks walked around him, and as soon as Isa blinked again he seemed to be gone from view. Of course, it was only because he’d turned around and blended into the crowd, but Isa couldn’t help but feeling like he had, perhaps, been a bit too hard on the kid.

Dying so often must be hard, after all, and he had no idea what else Hitori might have going on to boot. Besides… he had come to high school to try and learn things about a social life, and so far all he’d done was be abrasive to somebody while also buying him a cell phone. Even he knew that was sending very mixed signals.

Hitori, meanwhile, ducked out of a side door of the school and walked away from it, just a few streets off. He walked past an apartment building and glanced at the door, then up at a window. The light was on; he shook his head and turned away, walking a few more blocks until he came across a house. It was a small, shoddy thing, with only three rooms, and the ‘for sale’ sign had been vandalized many times. It was drafty on top of having no facilities due to its ‘uninhabited’ status, but it was better than sitting out on the street or going back to his house. The door was always locked, but many of the windows had been broken by kids tossing stones, one of which was quite enough for him to crawl through. While inside, he blocked it by dragging over the empty bookshelf from the corner of the room, and avoided the chill from those broken windows by huddling in the bedroom, which had no windows at all.

What a sad little place… yet, somehow perfect. He sighed as he collapsed onto the bed, the only furniture in the room that remained aside from a dresser with drawers that barely worked. The bed had broken springs on one side of it, being queen-sized. The bookshelf too, was flawed. So of course whoever had lived here before left them behind after getting the opportunity to live someplace better.

Hitori was small, though, and could easily sleep on this bed while avoiding the broken parts, though he sometimes woke up with scratches from turning over in his sleep. He nearly fell asleep right now, but didn’t, instead sitting back up and leaning over to the top drawer of the dresser, also known as the only one that still worked at all, and even it jammed sometimes. It took three good tugs to get it to pull out. He grabbed from it a lighter and a pack of cigarettes; he stored quite a number of these here during winter break, just before New Year’s, so he wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of getting ahold of them all over again. Also in the drawer were a few bags of chips and packs of gum, though those were much more recent developments. And a box of candy that he’d found unopened on the ground.

Those weren’t relevant right now, though. He just needed a smoke, after a day like that. When he was finished he put it out unceremoniously on the floor, letting the cigarette join its fallen brothers, and got partially undressed, pulling off his top layers in order to remove his binder. Once he did he coughed a few times, wincing. Admittedly, smoking and binding was certainly not the smartest combination, but he couldn’t say he cared much. When his lungs were ready to breathe again, he lay down and pulled the mildly uncomfortable blankets over himself, glad that the chill winter had lent to the house was starting to be replaced with warmth; he’d have about a week of this comfortable temperature before summer started making it heat up to equally uncomfortable levels.

For now, though, he could be a bit comfortable, and he could sleep, and try not to think. Thinking had long ago become an incredibly horrible idea, after all.


	5. Chapter 5

“...Good morning,” Somebody greeted Hitori, waking him up. In ignorance of who it was, their position, or even what their voice or tone was, it was incredibly unsettling to even hear any voice while in a place like this; that meant somebody had gotten in, and not only that, but gotten in while he was at his most vulnerable. Also known as sleeping.

“Ah!” Hitori jolted, sitting up immediately and opening his eyes, but at least having enough sense to keep the blankets clutched around himself, hiding his bare chest. When he caught his breath after being so incredibly startled, he finally bothered to take a look at who it was. Isa stood there, next to the bed, dressed just as trimly as ever and peering at him over those red-rimmed glasses with a scrutinous look, “What the /fuck/ Isa!?”

“You were going to oversleep and miss school. You should be grateful that I woke you up,” Isa shrugged, then crossed his arms over his chest.

“How did you even get in here…?” Hitori hissed, gathering more blankets to hide more in a functionalm nest that would completely obscure him from view, “Not that I’m really surprised, that it was you…”

“It wasn’t hard. I decided I wanted to find you, so I did. I was going to wait till you woke up naturally… I’ve been here for two hours. But, it seems you have no alarm clock, and therefore, I had to wake you before you were going to be late. Not that you particularly seem to care about your attendance rates,” Isa turned his head to the side, staring at the wall and tapping his foot, “But, I’m just trying to look out for you. I want to apologize for… having killed you in the past, I suppose. And for getting you involved in this research, of course, though I can’t say I wouldn’t do that latter bit again. It doesn’t seem like anything bad is coming of it, at least.”

“I really don’t think that breaking into somebody’s home while they’re sleeping is a good way to deliver an apology,” Hitori grumbled, glaring at Isa, “You really scared me. And how do I know it’s only been two hours? Hell, two hours is a long time. You were watching me sleep. And I don’t know what you might have done to me while I was sleeping! Everything about this is just. No good. Get out so I can get dressed.”

“You’re naked?” Isa questioned, “I wouldn’t really take you for the type to sleep in the nude, or in pajamas. So by that logic, shouldn’t you already be dressed?” He frowned, picking his feet up, “And, you do know that smoking is horrible for your health, don’t you?”

“I know. Don’t care. I’m not naked, but I want you to get out,” Hitori frowned, “I need to get dressed, okay?”

“Well if you aren’t naked, then why are you hiding in the blankets like that?” Isa wondered aloud, taking another step closer, “Listen, Hitori, I really do feel like we got off on the wrong foot. We’re going to be stuck with each other for quite a while, it seems, so we should attempt to get along…”

“Well, I’m shirtless,” Hitori shot back, “Get out.”

“And why should that matter?” Isa raised an eyebrow, smirking as his gaze travelled over to the shirt on the ground, noting what looked like an undershirt beside it… but, despite his lack of practice in social situations, he was not a clueless person. He was well-learned and knew about quite a number of things in the world, and this was no exception.

“Because it does-” Hitori said, but was cut off by Isa reaching forward and flinging the blankets off of him. He reacted immediately, crossing his arms over his chest and staring for a good thirty seconds before shouting, “What the Hell!? Why are you like this!?”

“I just wanted to prove my theory right,” Isa shrugged, then reached down and threw the shirt, jacket, and binder at Hitori’s face before turning towards the door, “Go on and get dressed. I’ll meet you in the… living room? It’s very cold, this early in the morning. It’s still not quite summer yet... I think I’ll just refer to it as the Shitty Room,” And with that offhanded comment, he was gone, closing the door behind himself.

Hitori picked up the clothing that had been thrown at his face and slipped it back on, returning to his natural slouchy and overlayered state before standing up and groaning as he grabbed another cigarette, lighting it before going out to meet with Isa again, finding him leaned against the counter on the far wall, the only remnant of what may have been a kitchen besides faint stains on the cheap linoleum in the outline of where a fridge probably once stood.

“How often do you smoke those things? You die often enough as it is, do you really need to go poisoning yourself slowly too?” Isa questioned, narrowing his eyes then sighing softly, “Really… don’t you care about yourself at all? You are going to move into the future someday.”

“I already told you, I don’t care,” Hitori muttered, and contemplated blowing smoke in Isa’s face, but decided against it. He wasn’t quite that much of an asshole, after all, “Besides. At least if I get lung cancer it’ll make my voice lower…”

“That seems like a very inefficient way to do things. You do know there’s such a thing as estrogen blockers? And, well, testosterone pills?” Isa rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, and you think I could get ahold of that shit? Look where I’m living,” Hitori gestured around himself, “I could only even afford it if I took on extra hours, and even then, it’d be a waste if I ended up dying and going back anyway. Not to mention that any sort of medical things would require the involvement of my piece of shit parents…”

“Your parents,” Isa said softly, looking up at the ceiling, “In those dreams, they die when you’re very young. A house fire… and you don’t mourn them at all.”

“I can’t imagine I would ever mourn them. They’re nasty,” Hitori shook his head, scoffing, “I think I’d rather be an orphan than have to deal with them, honestly.”

“You did quite a few horrible things, you know. Back then,” He frowned, “And as far as I can tell, you haven’t done anything too bad yet. Maybe it isn’t so awful, that they’re still alive-”

“Again. Look around,” Hitori hissed, “I’m a squatter in the worst chunk of real estate in town. Therefore, I have nothing, except the years of shit that they piled on me before I realized that I had to get the Hell out of there…” He muttered, turning away and leaning against another wall, “I had to enroll myself for middle school. That’s how long I’ve been out of that damn house.”

“Why did you leave?” Isa questioned, raising his eyebrows, “How bad can they be? I understand that parents can be terrible, but-”

“It was at a point where I could no longer live in that apartment,” Hitori said blankly, cutting Isa off before he could continue to piss him off.

“Oh,” Isa nodded slowly, “As in, you literally could not live there? As in, they would kill you?”

“Exactly. That’s how I discovered my abilities as an esper… I was in elementary school, about to graduate, and I told my parents about my gender issues. At first, they were convinced they could fix me… I couldn’t even go back to a time I hadn’t told them, because New Year’s happened in between when I told them and when… they both decided that I wasn’t worth anything at all to them. I was honestly, very terrified. I thought that I really was going to die, they were actually trying to kill me. They actually did kill me… but then I woke up. Midnight had passed in my sleep that New Year, so it was almost pleasant, resetting then. I was back in my bed and I woke up, and everything was just the same as it had been a week before my parents murdered me…”

“Well in any case, that does soothe some of my curiosity… knowing how you died the first time. How do you know that they would behave the same if you returned now? Perhaps they’re worried…” Isa hesitated, then frowned, “Or, perhaps not. They never did put out a missing persons bulletin on you, did they? And for all you know, you could go back now and they would only try to kill you again…”

“I tried my best to avoid it, when I reset. I thought it was just one second chance, but I couldn’t change a thing. I couldn’t go back far enough to make the change I’d need to. By New Year’s Eve, they’d already made up their minds… the only variance possible between timelines was when they’d do it. One day, one week, one month… longer times made me think maybe it was okay, but then I’d be killed. So, I had to leave,” Hitori shrugged, “They’re messed up. I’m just lucky enough I got the chance to escape from them, or something.”

“Or something…?”

“Listen, Isa. I’ve lived way too long by age fifteen,” He sighed, shaking his head, “At this rate, I’d really rather just be killed and get it over with, but I can’t. There’s no way for me to die. I’ve tried… All sorts of things.”

“Oh,” Isa frowned for a moment, then tilted his head to the side, “I suppose that would explain why you’re so incredibly bitter.”

“You’re just picking up on this now?” Hitori asked rather incredulously, standing up straight again and walking back over towards him, “No offense, but it’s getting really obvious just how homeschooled you are… don’t you know anything about people?”

“Not particularly. Only what I’ve read in books. Oh, and my parents occasionally talk to me, but never for very extended periods of time. As far as I can tell, they’re mildly afraid of me…” He shrugged, “That’s why I waited to go to high school until I was of an age to have social interactions. I have not been home schooled. I was boosted from elementary school to middle school, then took time off until I was the usual age for a first year high school student.”

“Oh, God. You’re the kid genius type,” Hitori rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, “So your social experiences thusfar have been entirely based in isolation, you’ve got an above-average IQ, and you’re used to people seeing you as superior… ugh,” He shook his head, “You’re a walking homicide warning.”

“...What?”

“Well, if you had a better grasp of human nature, then you’d understand,” Hitori shrugged again, speaking almost dismissively, “Your lack of social experience means that it’s very likely you’ll get manipulated by somebody, thus generating bad situations leading to disappointment or, possibly even trauma. Despite this naivety, the fact that you’re accustomed to being better than people means you’ll simultaneously ignore advice towards your well-being and consider other people to have lowered worth. In addition, your soaring academic achievements perpetuate this, and the fact of the matter to consider is that people with great intellects are known to spend too much time alone with their thoughts, curiosities, and a self-assured belief that they can get away with anything if they just apply their brain…” He spun around, then pointed at Isa, both of their faces still emotionless, “Am I right?”

“Hm,” Isa considered these words for a moment, “I can’t say that you’re wrong. However, I believe that having such a warning will prevent such ideas from coming to fruition. As long as I’m careful, such a thing would never befall me.”

“You just wait a few timelines…” Hitori grumbled, rolling his eyes.

“I suppose that’s correct. I can’t really see myself becoming as harshly bitter as you are, and repressing anger that I’ve built up over the number of resets could certainly lead me to a level of composed violence. However, I do believe that as long as I make an effort to remain above such things, I shall. And… as it stands, I doubt I will be manipulated. The only person I can trust to associate with given the volatile nature of happenstance is you; it wouldn’t be worth anybody’s time to foster relations with somebody who will only forget as soon as a certain prone to dying person does just that.”

“Well, that’s a good way to go about things, I think,” Hitori shrugged, putting his hands behind his head then going to climb out of the window, Isa following after him, “Honestly, you shouldn’t trust anybody at all. Even somebody who’s perfectly civil in one timeline could murder you in another. Or worse…”

“I’m guessing that you learned that lesson the hard way?” Isa questioned, and Hitori nodded, “I won’t ask the details, of course. That would simply be rude of me, after you’ve already answered my other curiosities and given me advice. Demanding any more of you would not exactly be prudent.”

“...Thanks,” Hitori shrugged somewhat, looking as Isa in confusion, “Why did you feel the need to come apologize, anyhow? You hardly seemed to care how well we got along yesterday, and I can’t say that I’ve exactly been the friendliest person towards you either. If nothing else, shouldn’t you be offended by the fact that I’m afraid of you?” 

“Not at all. I’m honestly used to people being frightened of me,” He muttered, “It’s just a relief that you’re stuck with me, and therefore, can’t properly act on that fear. I did come to high school at the correct age to make an effort in improving my socialization skills; seeing as it wouldn’t make a scrap of sense to attempt befriending somebody else, with the matter that I will be losing time on a consistent basis thanks to your susceptibility to death, I realized that you would be my only opportunity to foster any sort of friendship. Therefore, I am going to try to behave in a manner befitting a friendship between us.”

“I… see,” Hitori grimaced somewhat, “Well, good luck with that,” He crossed his arms over his chest as he started walking in the direction of the school, “No, really. Good luck. I’m not opposed to the idea of being friends with you, exactly, I’m just not sure it’d be possible. I’m excessively unlikeable, after all.”

“Hm, well, you try to be,” Isa shrugged a bit, entirely calm as he fell into step with Hitori, hands in his pockets, “But I’m pretty sure the only bit of that that’s genuine is how bitter you are. For all of the rude behavior you’ve shown, I have not once felt offended by something you’ve said, nor do I find myself disliking you. Annoyed by you, yes, but if you really were so unlikeable that I couldn’t tolerate it then I would have abandoned you as a friendly cause already.”

“I… see,” He mumbled, “That’s a first. Being told that I’m not actually so unlikeable, I mean.”

“Well, keep in mind, I am speaking from my own personal perspective. It’s entirely plausible, after all, that people will dislike you for reasons particular to themselves. For example, it’s very easy to consider giving up on speaking to you as a result of this abrasiveness, just in that it makes it feel as if one will have to try very hard for a very long time to form a connection with you… in addition, there are always prejudices to consider…” Hitori flinched a bit when Isa said this, and nodded slowly, “And, smoking is an incredibly common turn-off, I think.”

“You’re right. Luckily, I’m not really trying to attract anybody. At all. Which makes it unfortunate that smoking is also a common turn-on, but that’s another story anyway,” He shrugged, turning and walking backwards with his own hands in his pockets now, “My hope before you came along was just to eventually trawl my way through life, and maybe someday possibly die. Not interact with anybody, not deal with anything. No friends, no romance, because you were right. It’s pointless. I’d just have to do it again…”

“Well, unless you were to stop dying so much,” Isa offered, but one look from Hitori told him that was a ridiculous prospect, “Of course, that isn’t exactly plausible, is it? Even if you were to stop resetting on purpose, it does seem like you are particularly prone to dying and being dead.”

“Yeah. Even if I’m really careful, I could still end up in an accident, or murdered,” He frowned.

“Exactly how often do you get murdered anyway? Just curious.”

“A lot. I can occasionally bump into one of my parents without getting killed, but that’s assuming they’re sober, which has never been often…”

“Alcoholics?”

“Addicts. Hard drugs, though I’m not sure exactly what. Whatever it is, it’s bad enough to convince them that it’s a good idea to kill me in broad daylight. And, sometimes if I run into a particularly nasty group of people who knew me in elementary school,” He paused, then turned to Isa, “I enrolled in middle school in this town, but I grew up practically on top of city lines. Next town over is a better school, so I could rely on people from there not enrolling here, and the people here would always just know me as I am now. I don’t think anyone I knew back then are particularly horrible people, but if you put ignorant people in a group you may as well be creating a senseless mob regardless of how unlikely the individuals are to attack someone.”

“I see…” Isa paused, “I wonder, if it has something to do with your abilities? If people around you become more violent as a result of your ability to survive being killed? Maybe the morphogenetic field hones in on you as a way to help get people’s violent urges out.”

“...Let me guess, Isa. You watched The Purge and liked it?”

“Well, yes, but that’s irrelevant. You heard what Doctor Kawara said, about a collective consciousness… what if mental states became consistent throughout timelines? For example, somebody is very volatile and about to do something horrid, but another version of them in another timeline kills you, and they no longer have homicidal urges, because another version of themself committed murder?”

“I guess it’s plausible, but wouldn’t the person who’s been helped by this also get stuck with the guilt?” Hitori questioned, shaking his head, “That just wouldn’t make sense.”

“Hmm… I suppose that’s correct,” Isa nodded, then froze in place, “Hold on a second. Your notes… have they ever failed you?”

“Well, yes. I worked out the statistic probability of things happening, and yet many things seemed to consistently happen more often than they statistically ought to… as if the probability was going up with every timeline…” Hitori spoke softly, crossing his arms, “Which, is kind of terrifying, actually. How am I ever supposed to survive through to the next checkpoint if the chances of violence done against me are increasing every time I die?”

“I thought that might be the case… all the more reason not to reset on purpose. It will just make things worse for you the next time…” He nodded slowly, “We should mention this theory to Doctor Kawara. He might be able to explain it better, or possibly even offer a solution.”

“Right…” Hitori nodded slowly, “I’m sure he’ll value the info.”


	6. Chapter 6

"Ah, yes! Everybody, listen closely! Isa here just brought up a very interesting point to me!" Ryuuji Kawara loudly addressed the entire room of students who'd been subjected to spending elective blocks with the eccentric scientist, leaning forward on the large teaching desk that he had and grinning from ear to ear, "Oh boy, I can't believe I didn't ever mention this to you before!"

"Is this something really important...?" Ayano sounded concerned, for once. Usually in these classes she didn't seem to care at all, propping her feet up on the desk in front of her and twirling her hair. Any other teacher would reprimand her on this, but given that the teacher for this particular class wore slippers, it wasn't shocking that he turned a blind eye to her careless behavior.

"Well, if it is, it's my fault," Isa muttered, hardly audible to the rest of the room as he mentioned his guilt in the matter, "I first thought about this early in the morning on the second day we had this class, but I neglected to mention it until now."

"At my request," Hitori added from his seat, rolling his eyes, "Whatever, it's a lot of people's faults... I just wanted to wait a few weeks before bringing this up in class, just in case it would turn out to be useless. It still might... Probably will, but that's life."

"Well, it's not that important! At least, it's not important to you, Ayano! The only people that this really concerns are those of you who are able to travel through time in some way or another... see, despite jumping consciousness between timelines to go back, it seems that timelines do have a sort of chronological order to them, at least when it comes to how espers experience them... Ah, this is so complicated to explain! Let me draw up a diagram!" Ryuuji never stopped smiling as he whirled around, grabbing a piece of chalk to scribble on the blackboard in the front of the room, drawing some birds in the order of an upwards slope.

"Now you see!" Ryuuji pointed at the birds, then started drawing arrows between them, "As the birds go up, that's you going back in time to reach them! But as you see, these arrows move between them like so, and," He drew an arrow from one upper bird to a lower one, "This is not possible! You cannot go to a timeline you've already been in! No matter what you do, your mind will remain consistent. For every timeline you experience, your train of thought will still follow a straight path!"

"I'm still not understanding it..." Kamiya muttered, sounding almost bitter as he hunched over his desk, glaring at Ryuuji. Something about this man's careless approach to such an elusive scientific discovery irked him... if it was only in more direct terms than these ridiculous 'easy-to-understand' metaphors, he probably would have gotten what Ryuuji was trying to say.

"Er, I believe the exact term for it is... Linear Consciousness? Your memories are always going to be in a straight line, that's just how it is! The world around you changes, but your mind doesn't! Oh, and if you were wondering," He drew a few curved lines between birds, jumping over the ones in between, still moving upwards, "This is how Yuuya's ability works! See, there's still that linear progression... Every time a new timeline is jumped into by an esper, it takes it place as being /after/ the previous timeline the esper was in, because that's how the brain interprets it!"

"What does any of this have to do with my theory, Doctor Kawara?" Isa spoke again from next to him, eyes narrowed and face sullen as this tangent moved away from the original concern.

"Oh, everything, Isa! Don't just assume that I'm going on about unrelated things, I haven't forgotten you! See, what Isa was wondering, was if there was a better chance of events happening if somebody moves through a number of timelines. Well..." Ryuuji's face seemed to darken somewhat, but just around the eyes, his mouth remaining just as much a sign of joy as ever, "Yes, there is! But it's nothing like being more likely to win the lottery, so don't go thinking you could do something like that!"

"No..." Ryuuji continued as he scribbled something on the board, "See here, the circle in this first timeline, that's all the events that happened there! And the part that I colored white is the amount of bad luck... which you may think is an unscientific thing, and really it is in most cases, until we get into things like morphogenetic field and time travel, of course! That does tend to make strange things more relevant, doesn't it?" He then drew another circle, and scribbled in it, "Then, in the next timeline, there's all the bad luck from the last timeline, plus the bad luck in that current timeline too!"

"So... As a consciousness jumps, the statistic probability of misfortune adds onto itself?" Hitori questioned without looking up from the phone Isa had given him, where he was taking notes and hoping like Hell that next time he reset the phone would come along with him, assuming he had it in his shirt pocket.

"Precisely! And the worst bit of it is... you, Hitori, you get a new checkpoint on the new year, don't you? Well, if it's the first day of school that your current point to go back is, that would be May... you have eight months to go. So, if your bad luck happens to build to a certain level above eight months, it becomes absolutely certain that you're going to have a bad time! Isn't that fascinating?" Ryuuji questioned, then closed a book on his desk that nobody, not even Isa standing next to him, had noticed was open, "Besides, that's an extra tidbit of motivation to make it all the way to New Year's Eve, isn't it?"

"I... yeah," Hitori nodded slowly, somewhat intimidated by Ryuuji's words. He frowned and finished up the notes he was taking before putting his phone into that shirt pocket, just in case something was to happen right then and there to cause him to need it in the right place. He was startled immediately after, but not by anybody's actions; just the bell ringing to signal the end of elective block. He sighed and got to his feet slowly to go back to class when he was approached by one of his peers.

"Hitori! Or, well, since class is out now, should I call you Uzune? Would that be more polite of me?" Said peer could be identified as Yuuya Sakazaki only by the tone of his voice, though Hitori looked up at him anyway just to verify it. Yes, a first year that tall could be nobody else.

"Hitori is fine," He shrugged as he grabbed his bookbag from beside the desk and slung it over his shoulder, making his way towards the door and simply assuming that Yuuya would follow after him to keep up the conversation, "Would you prefer if I called you Sakazaki, though? And if you'd rather call me Uzune, by all means, go ahead. Whatever makes you comfortable."

"Whatever makes me comfortable? Ah, Hitori, that's not very tsundere of you at all! Could it be that you really aren't the standoffish emo we all thought you were?" Yuuya teased, stepping around to walk backwards in front of Hitori as they talked, "But, that's just to people who are only really getting to know you now. On the other hand, I'm completely convinced that you are an absolute softie after all, mon amie!"

"Didn't you transfer into this school system last year? We've hardly spoken before, you can't really claim to have gotten to know me before anybody else," He shrugged as he spoke, words rude but tone... lacking in any emotion whatsoever, actually. It was rather offputting to the one speaking to him.

"Ahah, you're right about that, Hitori! But I've caught plenty of glimpses of you looking out for your classmates! Did you perhaps, see them die in another timeline, and decide to steer them away from that fate? How heroic of you! I only wish that I could be that way too... it's everyone's dream, deep down, to be a superhero! Or, eheh... at the very least, an action hero," Yuuya was jumping to conclusions, and the annoyance at that showed in Hitori's face, causing Yuuya's own to fall slightly.

"Are you stupid...?" Hitori questioned, glaring at him, "Have you heard a word that's been said in that class? Of course I couldn't do something like that. There's no indicators, nothing at all to say that something which happened in one timeline could possibly happen in another. If you ever happened to notice me looking out for another student's well-being... it really is just that. Trust me, I'd do more if I could, but all I can really do is give the same sort of advice as anybody else."

"The fact that you care enough to do that much is impressive, though! Clearly, I was right about you! You're just softhearted," He chuckled, shaking his head, "I'm slightly skilled in the fine art of investigation, you see! I wouldn't go as far as some people, of course... I'm no stalker! However, I was a bit curious. I found out that you're not living with your family, and that the roughness in your voice is an artificial byproduct of nicotine consumption..." He tilted his head and the ceiling lights seemed to reflect off his glasses in such a way as to make them opaque, "Or... is it the reason for that nicotine consumption?"

"I'd prefer not to talk about this anymore, Yuuya," Hitori muttered, standing still now and clenching his fists, staring at the floor. He was already planning how to get out of this... at this rate, there was no way he could make it anywhere to jump without being stopped by Isa, or by Yuuya himself, so he'd probably have to make it through the rest of the school day first-

"You're planning to kill yourself, aren't you? You want me to forget all of this? Hitori..." Yuuya tsked softly, looking back down at the floor before turning his head slightly to meet Hitori's gaze, staring gently at the fear in them, "How would you feel, if anybody in this school was to die? If it was announced over the intercoms, if people started groups to remember them, if it was something that you feel you could have prevented, if you only had the opportunity? If you only thought to try? No need to answer, I know. You'd feel really rotten, wouldn't you? You don't want anybody here in this school to come to harm... I feel the same way! Ah, so, have you ever thought about the timelines you leave behind?"

"Yuu-"

"Give me your phone, Hitori," Yuuya held his hand out, and Hitori dropped it gently into his palm without hesitation. He grasped it, pulled it closer, then opened it to add his number into the contacts, discreetly copying down Hitori's number as well in the process, "I won't let you surrender this timeline, not yet. Not because of me. Here," He handed the phone back, smiling sweetly once again, "If you ever need somebody besides Mr. Stodgy over there to talk to, won't you give me a call? I promise you, if you call... I'll answer."

The second bell rung, signaling that the both of them were now late in their return to class. Hitori sighed again as he returned his phone to his pocket, and Yuuya turned to run off with a flirtatious wave and the slightest hint of a wink, grinning at him until his face was entirely out of view.

\------  
When summer break rolled around, Hitori spent it at ‘home’ by himself, though he didn’t necessarily have to. He could have called Isa, or Yuuya, to spend some time with either one of them, but he didn’t really feel up to it. He was shocked, honestly, that he’d managed to make it to summer break on this timeline; usually he wasn’t able to make it more than two months on his first try at any particular stretch of time. Maybe Isa’s influence was helping him after all.

In any case, however, he did _not_ see anyone over the break, or at least, nobody worth mentioning. He instead spent it working extra hours at his part time job to make some more money for food, knowing that it was always best to keep his options well-stocked in case of certain situations; if he was to get fired, for example, he didn’t want to starve. Of course, Isa would probably offer to buy him food if that was the case, but something about Isa’s kindness seemed more like bribery than any sort of genuine compassion. It felt wrong to accept it.

It was a productive break, in general, and continued along a very mechanical schedule of work and sleep, up until the last day before school started up again when Hitori was still working just as usual, currently stocking the shelves at the convenience store he worked at. This job certainly made it easier to get ahold of snacks and, even moreso, cigarettes, though in past times he had lost his job over the latter. It reflected badly on the company, if its underaged employees were getting at controlled substances.

“Oh, so this is where you work, Hitori?” A familiar voice interrupted him and he looked up from the rows and rows of packaged potato chips, only to see a sight that he couldn’t say he ever expected, one that was incredibly surreal; seeing somebody who was already nearly two feet taller than him, from a crouched position. Yuuya Sakazaki practically looked like a giant.

“Yeah, it is,” Hitori nodded, “Most people quit after a few weeks here, so they’re always looking for help. I’ve got a good amount of job security, assuming that I don’t screw up,” He explained, turning away from Yuuya to continue stocking while they talked. Slacking off wouldn’t get him fired at a place like this, but he’d really prefer not to get paid for doing nothing.

“Screw up by doing something like stealing cigs?” Yuuya questioned, chuckling, “You know those things are really awful for you, right mon amie? I know somebody who smokes cigars all the time and even he’s going on about how I should never start smoking, so it really must be something worth avoiding!”

“Well whoever’s telling you that is absolutely correct,” Hitori shrugged, “It’s awful for you, smoking anything really. Hell on your lungs…” He frowned, staring at the bag of chips in his hand, falling silent.

“Hm… you told us about Nageki Fujishiro, in class. He’s already graduated high school, right?” Yuuya questioned, rubbing the back of his neck, “But, he’s still in the area. You could talk to him again, you know! The way you talked about him made it obvious you’re really worried about him…”

“He’s older than me now, he wouldn’t ever listen to me. He’s already made his mistakes, hurt himself…” He shrugged and stood up as he finished the last of the box he’d been stocking from, “Besides, last time I tried to protect him, I just ended up hurting him more… It’s better for him, if I stay out of his life, I think.”

“Well, that’s your choice, but it’s surely upsetting you on some level!” Yuuya sighed, throwing an arm around Hitori’s shoulders, “And the thing is, I haven’t the faintest clue why it is you want to mess your voice up so bad, but it’s pretty clear that’s the reason… I have my ways of finding these things out, see. It would make perfect sense that you smoke out of bitterness at the world, but that’s not even the case! You really are a puzzle, Hitori…”

“There’s no need to try and figure me out, really,” Hitori protested, shifting his shoulders to knock Yuuya’s arm off of them before grabbing the empty box and bringing it over to the pile behind the register; the recycling went out at closing, or when it got too overwhelming, whichever came first.

“But, I want to!” Yuuya insisted, leaning on the counter and folding his hands under his chin, finally getting to a level where he wasn’t towering over Hitori, “I find you very interesting! And, besides. I know that you’re just bitter… I want to discover the real you, the truth! It’s fascinating to me, the little glimpses that I’ve seen… the real you seems wonderful! So if I could uncover that again, and make you happy…”

“...Listen. Are you going to buy something or not? Because if you aren’t then you’re just loitering, and harrassing an employee,” Hitori sighed, “I don’t know what sort of romance novels you’ve been reading, but when it comes to me, what you see is what you get. You want the past me, not the real me. They’re two very different things. The real me is standing right in front of you.”

“Standing in front of me, hating the world… but still concerned for the well-being of those around you… I suppose that’s enchanting enough, though I’m still going to hold onto the hope that I can get through that tough shell of yours! You have secrets, I understand the feeling of putting up walls to hide things, but I’m not going to stop till I get through to you, mon amie! Once somebody’s caught my attention I’m not so easily shaken off!” He chuckled, then leaned down and grabbed three packs of bubblegum from the shelves at the counter, “And, what sort of candy would you recommend?”

“Well, if you like sweet things, the brown sugar candies are really good. If you don’t, maybe milk candies?” Hitori shrugged, “I don’t try a lot of desserts, so I’m not the best person to ask,” He focused on the question rather than continuing to address Yuuya’s odd behavior… though, oddly enough, it didn’t come across as creepy to him.

“All right!” Yuuya nodded, then grabbed two bags of the brown sugar candies Hitori had mentioned… that was really all they could be called, after all, they were candies made of brown sugar, filled with brown sugar. Overwhelmingly sweet, but if that was the sort of thing that Hitori liked… with everything on the counter Hitori rung it up, and Yuuya paid, then started to walk away with the packs of gum, but not the candies.

“Uh, Yuuya,” Hitori called after him, only to see finger pistols thrown up in the air without him even turning around to look again, moments before the door jingled with his departure. Hitori sighed and shook his head, then looked at the candies on the counter and put a hand to his face; yep, warm. He was definitely blushing, which was ridiculous. Yuuya Sakazaki flirted with _everybody_ so it wasn’t as if this was anything special. Still… these were Hitori’s favorite candies, and he didn’t often allow himself to indulge in sweets, knowing that he might need that money for something with more substance to it…

He shrugged and put the two bags of candy into his bag under the counter, then looked around the store. Empty again. He ducked into the back to grab another box to restock another shelf until another customer happened to come in; he always did whatever he could to busy himself in useful ways when the store was dead.

Nothing else of interest happened that day, or the next day, or even the day after. It was three days into the resumed school year, and the second term, that anything worth mentioning occurred, and of course it was during elective block. Hitori was getting tired of missing out on music, gym, and math in favor of learning about pseudoscientific telepathy, but he was afraid of what might happen if he skipped. Ryuuji Kawara did seem friendly enough, yes, but at times he was still rather intimidating.

On this particular day, Yuuya was out of school. Hitori had noticed and had excused himself to the main office in the first ten minutes of the elective, just to make sure that Yuuya was all right, though he wasn’t sure why he was so much more concerned over him than he was about anybody else; normally it took three consecutive absences for Hitori to ask if a student was doing okay, but this was Yuuya’s first one… and perhaps that was why. Hitori couldn’t remember Yuuya ever having been absent before, and he’d seemed to be in perfect health in the days leading up to this absence as well.

When Hitori walked into the main office, he saw there an incredibly tall man speaking to the secretary; a blonde wearing dog tags, who had a distinctly non-Japanese look to him, though Hitori couldn’t place what country he could possibly be from. Somewhere in the western world, surely. He would have eavesdropped on the conversation if not for the fact that the minute he entered the room, this mysterious man turned to him and grabbed his shoulders, “You! You’re one of the ones in that Takaba-run class, aren’t you?”

“...Yeah, what about it?” He muttered, pulling away from this man’s grip and leaning over to make eye contact with the secretary, “Hey, Ms Tosaka? I came to ask if you know why Yuuya Sakazaki isn’t in school today. Is he all right?”

“Sakazaki’s fine!” That man answered instead, “In fact, I’d say that he’s the most fine of any of you! You need to get out of here, fast! I can get you out, if you come with me. I’d take the whole class, except that she told me the elective block already started… You’re in danger.”

“What!?” Hitori whirled around, panicking, “That means, everyone else…!” He ignored the cautioning he’d been given and instead took off back towards the classroom immediately, breathing heavily as he stood in the doorway back there but with no time to catch his breath as he saw that in the room were several unknown adults, and the rest of his classmates were lying on the ground. The rest of them except Isa.

“Oh, Hitori! You’re back!” Ryuuji grinned, holding in his arms the unconscious form of his own son, “Sorry to begin without you, but I’m afraid I didn’t have anything else in my lesson plan for today, and it really would have been suspicious if I’d told everyone involved to just wait a little while till one particular student got back!”

“What’s… what’s going on here…?” Hitori demanded to know, already gripping the doorframe so tight that his knuckles were turning white. The best plan would have been to run and get the nearest teacher to help with the situation, but he found when thinking of that idea that his legs were practically frozen, he couldn’t move in his fear.

“It’s simple. Doctor Kawara informed me that his research was not making nearly as much progress as he would have liked, so I suggested that he take this class to a much more… in-depth, testing facility. Friendliness can only get you so far, after all,” Isa shrugged from where he stood, unharmed, “I am always glad to help in the advancement of scientific research. Don’t worry, though. They know that all could be lost, if they were to kill you, so you’ll be safe. I can’t speak for the others, but…”

“Well actually, Isa,” A voice chimed in from the corner and yet another tall person stepped forward. They looked to be around the same age as the blonde Hitori had seen in the office, though _this_ blonde didn’t look as if it was natural. The two of them both looked to be around twenty-two… so they’d died around seven years before Hitori, Isa, and Yuuya had. This one looked… over-the-top, mildly ridiculous, fashionable, but mostly intimidating, “You are correct about Uzune. We cannot kill him without risking losing our entire timeline, but… we are going to have to kill you. Nothing personal, but…” They tossed their hair, cocking a hand on their hip, “We may need to get these students to cooperate, and there’s no way anybody would trust you at this point. It’s just another obstacle in the way of progress, anyhow. I’m sure you won’t mind laying down your life for such a worthy cause.”

And, as the unknown party snapped their fingers, one of the men in the room raised a gun and shot Isa Souma.


	7. Chapter 7

“Oh, thank goodness! I was worried that you’d never wake up! Ça alors, Hitori…” Hitori had opened his eyes the moment he’d woken up, and he heard a familiar voice before he even had the time to take in his surroundings, get his bearings, or figure anything out at all besides the fact that clearly, Yuuya Sakazaki was there.

“What’s the last thing you remember, kid?” The other voice didn’t have the same degree of friendliness or familiarity, but Hitori was sure he’d heard it before… Somewhere. He was still too dazed to even try to think, but he started to become aware of the world around him. His vision had been blurred when he woke, but it was slowly clearing as he got a sharper view of the ceiling above him. Looked to have a tiny bit of water damage… He became aware that his head was on a pillow, and it felt like the mattress under him was… Thin, but not worn out. He turned his head, and only his head to the direction of the sounds, unwilling to move the rest of his body under the blanket; there was Yuuya, as he knew, and sitting in another folding chair beside him was the man who’d been in the main office at school.

The main office….

“I think,” Hitori started, mumbling as he scanned the room behind them. It was a small room, with floral wallpaper, beige carpeting, and a dresser with a vase of fake flowers and some strange antique object perched upon it. It looked like a room in some sort of boarding house… Maybe that was where this was, “The last thing I remember was… A tall, blonde person said that Isa wasn’t useful anymore… They, shot him, and I blacked out…”

“Well, that’s consistent with our information,” The man nodded, then held out a hand for a second before reconsidering and just crossing his arms, realizing that Hitori was probably not /able/ to shake his hand at the moment, “The name’s Leone. I’m an esper, and this here is… I guess you could call it a safehouse. I used to work at one in France, till Sakazaki here’s program got rerouted to Takaba Labs a few years ago. We’d been working together for a while, so the higher-ups figured it’d be best I followed him. Good thing I did, too. This was huge… And Koshiba’s certainly capable, but nobody could have handled something like this alone.”

“This… What exactly is… This…?” Hitori questioned, still acting through a deep haze. Yuuya and Leone were both… as if they weren’t really there. He knew that wasn’t the case, of course, but he was still trying to get his bearings, and was hit by a particularly strong desire to know the answer to one other question, “How long was I asleep…?”

“Ahaha… Well, it’s now December,” Yuuya chuckled nervously. “We rescued everybody back in mid-October. Something about the drug they gave you… Well, you were practically dead! No need for food, water, any of that… It was frightening, honestly. The only problem you seemed to have aside from being unconscious was respiratory issues, which they remedied by giving you oxygen and we remedied by taking off your binder. Oh, but don’t worry! I’m the only one who saw you topless, not any of the adults or the other students! Eheh, although, perhaps that isn’t much consolation…”

“I’d rather one person than multiple. I guess it’s fine that it’s you,” Hitori almost whispered, letting his eyes drift shut again. He wasn’t about to fall asleep again, but he didn’t feel up to keeping his eyes open. Luckily, it seemed that Leone could tell the difference.

“This was… Well, we discovered that impatience among researchers led to some unfortunate happenings. At Kawara Ryuuji’s prompting, they went through on a suggestion made by Isa Souma. To drop the current friendly initiatives and move forward with more intensive testing in order to sooner get results. The initial intention of that testing facility was to find espers on death row, or to determine some way to artificially grant ESP to death row prisoners, but… That would take at least another decade to work out, and somebody somewhere along the line was sick of waiting… So they kidnapped their students instead. This isn’t the first time either, hence why these safehouses even exist.”

“Eh…?” Hitori’s response was barely there, but the slight noise he made definitely showed his confusion.

“Well, more precisely, after a non-esper group finds out about ESP, their first reaction is shock. The second is to understand it. The third is to determine how it can be exploited. Unfortunately, up until now, it had only been small groups, but Takaba Labs is under the direct supervision of a political faction called the Hawk Party. Should they decide to go public with this, they’ll undoubtedly spin it to make it seem like you kids are dangerous and must be recaptured at all costs…” Leone shook his head, grumbling under his breath and holding a hand to his forehead, “And… None of those other groups ever tried to exploit espers quite as much as Takaba did here. They put the others through quite an ordeal, and the purpose…”

“There were a few different things they wanted to accomplish. One was determining a way to combine events from different timelines. Another was trying to travel back in time to before the year of birth… There was also something about reviving the dead, but it seems that the top priority was accessing the morphogenetic field on a widespread enough level to learn worldwide government secrets and various other knowledge…” He hesitated then, folding his hands on his lap and furrowing his brow, letting out a heavy sigh through his teeth, “An effort that was… Carried out in a less-than-humane manner.”

“What happened to the others…? I know that Isa’s dead, but everyone else… Rin, Ayano, Mayu… And what about Ryouta? He’s okay, right? Doctor Kawara wouldn’t hurt his own son… Right…?” Hitori had opened his eyes again, and there was a sort of betrayed desperation there. He couldn’t believe that Ryuuji could have gone that far… Or at least, he wanted to think that even traitorous scientists couldn’t be as prone to murdering their children as his own parents. He didn’t want to believe that people had been badly harmed, although he already knew that was a pipe dream. Isa…

“Well, the only other person who died besides Isa was, eheh…” Yuuya looked away, smiling bitterly, “Somebody from the other school that got caught up in this mess…”

“Sakazaki, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Leone groaned, setting a hand gently on his shoulder, “Listen. If you’d been in there, nothing would be better. You might have ended up dead yourself, and the rescue probably would have failed. Koshiba and I couldn’t have gotten them out of there without your help from the outside. Your skill with electronics, is… Unnatural. A byproduct of a past life, surely, and something very necessary to the mission.”

“But… You didn’t answer my other question,” Hitori tried to sit up, but found himself incapable. Of course, after months unconscious his muscles certainly would have atrophied to some degree, “Was anyone else… Harmed…?”

“Long story short… Ahaha…” Yuuya suddenly stood up and started pacing back and forth in the small room, “Yes.”

\----------

“What’s going on… Isa…?” Ayano mumbled, finishing a thought from before she’d been knocked out before blinking, propping herself up on her elbows, and examining her surroundings. There was nobody there… The room she was in was stark, metal, and didn’t seem to have any way out. She slowly blinked a few more times before pulling herself up to her feet and assessing the situation. She was still wearing her clothes from before… Her high school uniform, which she wore out of worry that she’d be caught in some other misbehavior if they called her in for dress code. That was one of the things which amazed her about Hitori; how he never wore a uniform at all, unafraid of the consequences.

Oh, that was because he didn’t have a men’s uniform. Now that the thought had crossed her mind, an explanation found its way there as well. Just as usual. She didn’t have an answer for why he would ever _not_ have a men’s uniform in particular rather than just… Not being able to afford a uniform, for example, but regardless of his reasoning she still found it enticingly rebellious. And that scarf of his...

And for that thought, she scolded herself. Her infatuation with Hitori Uzune was, in her mind, her absolute biggest flaw. It had begun in middle school, when she’d noticed that he was starting to become more… Dark and brooding. He filled an easy slot in her mind, of somebody who could give her the privilege of being murdered by the person she cared about most, if she could convince herself to care about him. A ploy for the hopeless romantic, until she fell too far and realized she would prefer to spend her entire life with him than be killed by him. He had gone from convenient to dreamy, which had never been her intention. She wouldn’t put it past herself to kill for him, or to break him to a point where she was all he had, or get rid of anybody who dared to go near him… Which was a major distraction in her life.

Even now, she was thinking about him when she should have been thinking about how to get out of this metal cell she’d found herself in. She scanned the room again, only to note something which had escaped her prior perusal. Somehow. In the corner was a sort of… Shadow. She hardly had time to adjust her glasses and peer at it before it moved, suddenly jumping towards her. Despite still recovering from her bout of unconsciousness, she had excellent reflexes and hopped to the side with ease, watching as the shadow seemed to take on more distinct features. Ah, so it was just her eyes… And there was a person here.

Ayano usually prided herself on being able to keep calm in high-adrenaline situations, but unfortunately, that was because she usually had some method of response. A girl who would take full advantage of fight or flight, except suddenly, she could do neither. She had no weapon and no way out of this room, and fear filled a pit in her stomach for the first time in… Well, had she ever been afraid before? Emotion was an altogether foreign concept to her usually, but she was certain this new one was definitely some form of fear. Perhaps even terror.

“Ueda. They didn’t take your knife. They just moved it. Do not hesitate to kill, it isn’t real. Find your knife, kill it, and you’ll get out of there, I promise!” A voice echoed in her head, and she stepped away from the wall she’d pinned herself against. The voice sounded like… She’d heard it before, but had never personally met the owner of it. However, she was currently in no position to question the reality of her assailant, nor how this voice in her head knew about her safety knife. Safety as in safety blanket, not protection, though it certainly helped with that too. Find the knife. She usually kept it in a sheath attached to her upper thigh, under her skirt, but she could tell by the weight it wasn’t there anymore.

Weight… She leapt to the side again, this time trying to be particularly aware of each bit of movement. Her shirt was stiff, but not so much that she didn’t notice this time the odd feeling of a knife’s hilt pushing against her sternum in between the two thick layers of clothing present in the winter uniform, which she wore year-round. A difference in sleeves and thickness never got anybody coded, anyway. She undid the top few buttons of her blazer quickly, just enough to pull out her knife, and in one fluid movement slash it across the throat of the mysterious attacker. There was blood, but no corpse; it seemed to disappear into ashes the moment she’d killed it, and the walls around her fell down with a tremendously unpleasant clatter.

She turned to see, standing there, Ryouta, Rin, and Mayu, as well as several people that she didn’t recognize. To be precise, four people. Making eight total. Those four others seemed to be a mix of third years and recent graduates, on the older side, though it was notable that none of the first years from Ayano’s own school were here. Isa, that traitor, was gone. Yuuya was missing that day, and Hitori… Hitori wasn’t here. Well, to abate her dread she decided to believe his trip to the office had spared him from this fate.

“Ueda. Finally,” A girl stepped forward, voice identical to the one Ayano had heard when she was afraid, “You’re so thin… The sedative must have had more of an effect on you, but I’m glad you finally woke up! I hope that wasn’t too horrible for you…”

“It wasn’t horrible at all,” Ayano shrugged, rebuttoning her blazer and wiping off some blood that had spattered onto her face, looking around at the seven other teens, “What’s going on here, though? I know how those three got here, I’m with them,” She gestured at the ones from her class, “But… The others… And you.”

“Ah, right! You can call me Kyoko. I’m from a program consisting of seventeen to nineteen year olds. It’s got the cover of being a prodigy program, but it was actually a Takaba-run program for espers… Just the four of us,” She explained, tilting her head and smiling a little, “Isn’t that right, boys and Hiyoko?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah!” The other woman there nodded, walking up to stand beside Kyoko, “I’m Hiyoko Tosaka! They went ahead and said Kyoko was an idol in training, and I was gonna lift weights in the Olympics someday! Oh and uh, Sakuya was gonna be a conductor! Like music, not trains! But Anghel has basically no redeeming qualities, in terms of skill at least. He’s a cool person, but... They just lied about him. I don’t even remember what they said,” Hiyoko shrugged, slinging an arm casually over Kyoko’s shoulders, “Anyway… We should assess the situation. Ryouta!! Get over here, you seem pretty good at explaining!”

“Wha? Ah, yes Hiyoko!” Ryouta nodded, running over, followed at a leisurely pace by Mayu and Rin, “I’ll absolutely explain for y-”

“Hey now, don’t go falling for me just cause I saved your life, kid! We only just met!” She laughed, patting him on the back and grinning.

“Ah… Right…” He seemed disappointed, looking down at the floor, but did fulfill her request anyhow, “Everyone woke up in one of those rooms. It’s… Well, it looks like we’ve been paired, maybe artificially, but I don’t think they’re able to do that… One member of the pair had to figure out what to do themself, then the other was able to telepathically communicate because of the danger and adrenaline, which is known to make it easier to access the morphogenetic field… Kyoko helped Ayano, Hiyoko helped me, Mayu helped Anghel, but Rin and Sakuya both did it on their own. I was thinking maybe there were missing people, but it doesn’t look like there’s anymore boxes, so I guess those two haven’t got a pairing esper, at least, not present. And now we’re here.”

Rin nodded in understanding, then turned to the other girl in their school’s group, “Hey, Mayu. You’ve been really quiet since you got out of your box thing, you doing all right?”

“Eh?” She looked up, then shook her head quickly as if she was shaking something off, and smiled, “No, no, I’m fine! After all, everybody else is doing okay, so I am too! Just as long as everyone’s all right,” She insisted, waving her hands in front of her, “It’s just, everyone seems awfully calm… aren’t you worried? Afraid? Wondering why we’re here…?”

“The last thing I remember is Isa standing up and saying something about camp… my dad saying sorry… some people came in the room, and then I blacked out,” Ryouta crossed his arms, looking down at the floor as he thought, “And that’s it. Next thing I knew I woke up here.”

“Mm, same here… except, well, it was in fact your dad apologizing. I’m not saying I also heard my dad,” Ayano responded softly, holding a hand to her chin, “I’m guessing it’s the same for everybody. Ryuuji Kawara said he was sorry, then we got knocked out.”

“Wait, your dad?” Sakuya questioned, turning to Ryouta and raising an eyebrow, “If you’re related to the man who put your group here, then how can any of us trust you?”

“Because he’s not the traitor,” Ayano said simply, putting a hand on his head despite being both shorter than him and his underclassman, “He was just as clueless as the rest of us. As… most of us, that is. Isa Souma, he’s the one who brought Takaba Labs to our school and he’s the one who stood next to Dr. Kawara during the incident. Also, I saw the men who stormed in. None of them approached Isa at all. He was the one to be distrusted.”

“Excellent deduction, Miss Ueda!” A voice boomed around them, and Ayano turned on a dime, trying to find the source and settling on sets of speakers on either end of the room, “You are correct. You see, for this test, we need you to trust each other. This is why Isa Souma and Tsukune Matsuda are not present. Seeing as they were the ones to make the arrangements for their respective groups to meet with Takaba, it would only be natural to distrust them, which would cause these experiments to go… far less smoothly. Tsk, we can’t have that!”

“The devil’s voice approaches…” A voice started up, one that hadn’t spoken since Ayano got out. Anghel, “It fills the air around us and speaks of things which may bring doom upon us all. A necessity of trust between comrades… implies that we shall be endangered. Show yourself and fight us like a true being, oh eminent voice!”

“I shall not show myself! I quite like being considered the eminent voice commanding you all to your potential doom!” The intercom crackled with the volume of this person, though he soon turned his tone slightly milder, at least enough to have a clear sound again, “As I’m sure your respective teachers told you, assuming Doctor Kawara actually did as well as he claimed, the theory of morphogenetic field operates along the idea that ESP is more easily activated through two factors! Adrenaline and epiphany! Therefore, if we wish to observe its effects, the best possible situation is for you to need to find your way out of danger.”

“If that’s all you want, why will we need to cooperate?” Sakuya demanded of the ceiling, stomping his foot for dramatics, “Who are you, to tell us such things? My father is a very important man! He could give you all the money that I and these commoners could ever be worth! You do not take important people to be your lab rats, _sir_! It will be your downf-”

“Ohhh, shut up!” The man behind the intercom whined, “Francois Le Bel agreed to this when we approached him with the idea of enrolling you in our program! We mentioned right to that man’s face that a situation may arise in which we’ll need to spirit you away to a testing facility for better results, and he was almost enthusiastic about it! Perhaps he is glad at the concept, that his freakish son might be lost to him without scandal on his name and intrigue for the change in heir? You wish to know who I am, Sakuya Le Bel? But of course. I am Tohri Nishikikouji! Head of engineering, optics, all things mechanical here at Takaba labs! I have the privilege of speaking to you now, as I am the one to create this testing facility! Although, we lacked in resources for the extravagance I may have liked…”

“You’re lying!” Sakuya shouted back, stomping with his other foot now and clenching his fists, “My father is proud of me for being greater than others in my abilities and would never consent to such a thing that may endanger my life in the name of science, as he does not care about science! He is a man of politics and diplomacy, of wealth and high living, what does he know of science? I am certain that he will pay ransom on my head, and enough to spare for these peasants as well! You have crossed the wrong family, Tohri Nishikikouji! None of us will die here! I mark it and swear on my name as a Le Bel!”

“Hm? What was that? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the gears. What gears, you may ask? Simple. The gears which will open the floodgates!” The intercom blipped out then, and the group of eight looked around at each other fearfully for only a few seconds before a door in the ceiling opened, dropping a torrent of water right down onto them. Though some of them were knocked over by the initial force, it didn’t prevent any of them from moving to the sides, treading water away from the pouring stream; mildly bogged down by uniforms, but not having trouble staying afloat. Everyone rapidly shed outer blazers to streamline themselves more, especially Anghel.

The recently-discovered eccentric had stripped quite fast, leaving himself in chest bandages and… spats? Though Ayano was confused as to why this boy would wear spats under his uniform on a daily basis, she wasn’t complaining, as it left him the most equipped to swim out of anybody now that his chain-laden slacks and clunky goth boots had been discarded. Perhaps he was used to needing to swim at a moment’s notice, because he also seemed to be staying up quite well.

“Indeed I am, Dark Sorceress Malfor!” His mouth didn’t move, but his voice came forth anyway, and not just to her; the others turned to him as well, “For although my past lives were wrought with suffer and battling, this life has lent my idyllic childhood a tone of silver morsels and oceans deep!” Somehow, everyone understood this to mean that he had a fishing background.

“Anghel and I are the strongest swimmers, but I can’t really swim well in this uniform. I’m wearing boxer briefs and a sports bra though, so will anybody be annoyed if I strip to help him look for some way to drain this water?” Hiyoko’s voice rung in everyone’s head, a few of whom noticed upon her words that Anghel was indeed swimming around and searching.

“Don’t do that!” Mayu interrupted despite everyone giving their okay for Hiyoko to undress, pulling off her own shirt, “I was on the swim team in middle school, so I’ll help him look. You’d be better for it, but... You seem really strong so you should come over here and hold on to Rin, okay?” When Hiyoko looked at the person in question she noted that while he was treading water, he looked so distressed that he might fail to do so at any moment. While Mayu dove, Hiyoko held Rin up with ease, saving him from the potential second-life drowning if he happened to give in to his fear.

Luckily, Anghel soon happened upon a plug in the floor, which he pulled out; and with it, an entire square of the floor’s large, metallic tiling. The water immediately began rushing through this hole at a pace consistent with that of the water entering the room, and Anghel didn’t hesitate at all before letting the current pull him through; Hiyoko shouted his name out loud, but within a second after her belllowing yell was completed, Anghel’s voice filled their heads again, beckoning them to come through one at a time, or two in the case of Hiyoko carrying Rin. Mayu was the first to follow this, swimming over only to come up, bobbing on the other side for a few seconds before Anghel grabbed her by the wrist and hoisted her onto the wooden dock alongside him.

“Okay, Rin, we’re going to have to go underwater for just a few seconds, okay? I’ll be right here and when we get to the other side we can get up onto dry land again,” Hiyoko, despite her earlier brashness, was able to speak very gently to the frightened boy that she was carrying before she adjusted her hold and diving down to be caught in the current to the other room. On the other side Anghel grabbed her and Mayu grabbed Rin from her, seeing as neither of them was strong enough to drag them both ashore at once. As soon as the difficulties were dealt with, Hiyoko positioned herself to catch the rest (as strongest) and they made their way through.

Once the final traveller had been brought over, said traveller being Sakuya, the group took a few more deep breaths regardless of when they’d made the trip before actually taking a look at their surroundings. The room was made of as much metal as the last one, though the parts submerged in water were wood, to prevent rusting. And there were a lot submerged in water, seeing as this entire area seemed to be one large and long pier spread around the room.

“Congratulations! That wasn’t actually a very difficult test… I knew that you were strong swimmers! In truth I never expected you to solve the issue while you still had air to speak for real, but nonetheless, how did you like that design of mine? A trap made to force you to establish a wide telepathic bond… We knew it was possible, but nonetheless, we had to spur it on! Oh, and the current if you couldn’t work together well enough to pull people out of that stream would lead to doom as well. Aren’t the stakes just orgasmically high?”

“I’m not sure you’re using that word quite right…” Mayu muttered, hunched over herself as water dripped from her onto the pier, “Nor do I appreciate it when none of us are fully clothed, if you do know the meaning…” There was something deadly in her voice.

“Er… Well then of course I must have been mistaken!” For somebody who clearly had the ability to kill them all at a moment’s notice, he was rather frightened by Mayu’s anger, “Anyhow. This upcoming chamber exists to test your abilities of preemption! Feel free to discuss before attempting to make your way through, of course. From here on it you even have the ability to strategize in a way that I can’t hear you, with that mental link! Goodie.”

“He can’t hear us if we do this?” Hiyoko questioned in that fashion, and the others nodded, “Okay, so we should know each other’s ESP skills before we try to move forward. Mine is that, if somebody lies to me, I’m able to read their minds as to what the truth was. It’d be better if I could read minds, you know, more often, but it’s nice to be able to see through people who’re trying to get the jump on me!”

“Rin and I are both able to rewind five minutes a limited number of times every day. I think it’s been long enough since we were abducted that we can each do it ten times, assuming he hasn’t used it at all yet. That gives us twenty do-overs…” Mayu answered, glancing around the group to meet eyes with everyone.

“I am able to plant ideas in people’s heads,” Sakuya noted, “They aren’t aware that the idea is planted, however, and will believe it was their own idea. Quite a useful tool for somebody in such a diplomatic position as I. My father acknowledges this fact, hence why I have faith he will pay ransom to have us freed.”

“But,” Ryouta joined in, “Francois Le Bel? I’ve heard of him. Maybe he’d pay ransom on you, but why would he care enough to pay for us?”

“Why, I’d make sure of it, of course,” Sakuya turned his nose up as he conveyed it, “Were you simply not listening to what I just explained my capabilities as being? Of course he would pay for you, and he would believe it was his own brilliant idea for that matter. Unfortunately, I do require eye contact… so I could not, for example, convince our captor to free us. I’m sure he is aware of this, and that is the reason he would not show himself…”

“Oh, I see,” Ryouta nodded, “Well, my ability is to see potential futures, but…” He frowned, “I have no idea which one will happen, plus, all of them seem like they’re not great… somebody gets hurt in all of them. In this room. I can’t even see anything past this room… but… we have five options. I get injured, Hiyoko gets injured, Anghel, Rin, or Ayano…”

“I volunteer,” Hiyoko noted as she looked around at all the potentials, “I can handle it best, I think. Nothing against any of you, but… I am physically strongest, and I’ve recovered from a lot of sports injuries in my life!”

“What? Hiyoko, I can’t let you do that!” Ryouta protested, only to receive a weird look from her.

“What’s with you, anyway? I get that we’re paired, but you’re acting like we’re old friends or something. It’s pretty weird. I’m not mad, but I am confused…” 

“Sorry. It’s just… sorry,” Ryouta shook his head, then pulled his knees to his chest, “It’s just that I’ve had memories of you my entire life. I’m a bit overexcited to finally be meeting you.”

“Oh…” She hesitated, then rested her face in her palm, “Well, why didn’t you say so sooner? I’d act the same way in your position. To you, we are old friends, right? Well, even if I don’t remember that, I’ll try to be nice to you, pal. And first step of being nice to you is taking one for the team here.”

“Well, we could always determine the source of the injury then rewind to avoid it?” Mayu offered, then narrowed her eyes and looked to Kyoko, Ayano and Anghel, “And, what are your abilities?”

“Me? I am able to combat the demon spores and accumulate allies to my cause!” Something about the link seemed to translate Anghel’s speech for them by informing them of the intent; what he meant there was that he was able to get others in on his delusions if he so chose; although it seemed he understood the gravity of the situation enough not to do so here.

“I know things,” Ayano answered next, “All sorts of things, I don’t know where they come from, but I just know them. Doctor Kawara… before he turned on us, he said that he thinks I might be picking up on knowledge that I have in other timelines, and that certain events may be able to trigger particular memories. And… you, Kyoko?”

“Contrary to what you may think, my ESP has got nothing to do with my building success as an idol recently,” Kyoko answered, twirling her hair, “Actually, it’s completely unrelated. Exactly the sort of thing an idol shouldn’t have, but what can you do? I am able to sway people to my will. I can’t control them by any means, but say, for example,” She dropped her hair then slipped a hand into her pocket as if fishing for a cigarette, then frowned when she found none, “I’d like to sleep with my boyfriend one night, but he’s tired and would rather just get some rest. I can’t make him want to if he is truly so adamantly against it, but if there’s a glimmer of doubt, I can cultivate that. Or, if I’d like to kill somebody who is already suicidal? I could do that, only by making that matching desire for their death grow in them…”

“That’s quite the ability,” Ayano couldn’t say she expected Kyoko to have so many dark things to say when she finally added her two cents, nor could she say that it was something she found intimidating or unattractive, “So, was that just an example, or do you actually have a boyfriend?”

“Well I do like blue-haired boys…” She chuckled, glancing at Sakuya.

“Kyoko Shirato!” He protested, indignance evident even only here in his mental voice.

“I know, I know. You haven’t got even the faintest bit of affection for me… if you did, I’d have used it by now,” She sighed, “So, no, I don’t have a boyfriend. Nor do I have a girlfriend. If I make it big as an idol I’m technically not supposed to date, but, God, that’s boring!”

“I see, I see,” Ayano nodded slowly.

“Enough flirtations!” Ryouta interrupted them, “Shouldn’t we get moving? We can let Hiyoko go ahead, then use Mayu’s rewind to avoid the injury the next time through. Mayu, be prepared to prevent it.”

“Will do!” Mayu saluted, then the eight of them began to make their way across the room. Unfortunately, when the injury did occur, it was a large wall of boiling water that streaked straight across the pier; Mayu reversed, yes, but when they approached it once again, even with her report on what happened, Hiyoko could think of no way to avoid it; she tried jumping aside into the other water, only to find that it, too, was boiling, and Mayu rewound once more.

“It’s not working,” She explained, distraught, once they’d returned once more to five minutes prior to the attack on Hiyoko, “It’s a wall of water that can’t be avoided; jumping into the water on the side of the pier is no better, since it’s boiling too…”

“So, I’ll just have to make this sacrifice,” Hiyoko sighed, stepping forward to lead the way once more, “It’s just some boiling water, what’s the worst that can happen?

Unfortunately, Mayu hadn’t counted on Hiyoko, immediately after being struck with the water, doubling over and screaming in pain, holding her eyes as if something particularly bad had happened to them. She was about to rewind again when the injured party shouted in her head, “Don’t rewind!” A few more moments before the visible agony faded, though Hiyoko still didn’t move from her position, till she communicated once more, “Like you said, this can’t be avoided. Save your rewinds for something that can be prevented…” As her mental voice trailed off, her real one whimpered.

Ryouta rushed to her side and grabbed her wrist, pulling one hand gently from her face to examine the damage and discovered some sort of strange slime across her eyes; he went to try and pull it off, only to jerk his hands back as his skin sizzled upon the slightest contact with it. He looked absolutely horrified and concerned, but Hiyoko looked oddly calm for having clearly acidic slime attached to her face.

For quite a long time, everyone stood in silent shock, unable to react to this. Despite careful planning and Hiyoko’s decision to go through with it knowing the risks, something horrible and unexpected had still caught them off guard. Although they’d previously been told about how deadly these tests could be, and just how, this was still a slap of reality in all of their faces after they’d gotten through that first trial with such flying colors.

“Looks like you failed. Lucky for you, unless it had been Rin Tatsuya, this test was designed only to cripple rather than kill. See, the solution was for Ryouta to go forward. He is the only one tall enough that the slime would land on his clothing rather than his face,” Upon hearing this Mayu rewound immediately, only to once more watch Hiyoko collapse to the ground in pain.

“Oh, my readings saw a spike in mental activity from Mayu. You rewound after I told you the solution, correct? That the solution is to send Ryouta through? Well I purposefully waited five minutes before doing that, and now your rewinds are up, so you can’t go back any further either. Don’t bother asking Rin… he used up all of his back when the room was filling up with water.”

“What!? I should have seven left! I’ve only rewound three times!” Mayu protested while Ryouta went to help Hiyoko.

“Yes, well, we gave you another drug which limits your individual abilities so you might focus more brain power on acting as one morphogenetic unit. In any case, Hiyoko Tosaka is out of commission for the remainder of the tests, so we will take her aside. Best of luck with the rest! Ciao~”

The intercom crackled out, and a gloomy mood fell over the remaining seven teammates as robotic arms pulled Hiyoko into a side room off of this one; however, it was clear they needed to press onwards. They wondered if they might be able to just go on strike from performing these puzzles until rescue came, but after ten minutes of that Tohri threatened them, so they moved on through the next door.

Just as Hiyoko had lost her eyes, remaining members fell to various injuries. In a puzzle meant to test the ability to share in mental memory and skills based on Mayu’s hobby of a certain mobile game, the sliding disk across the floor hit Ayano’s ankles far too quickly and broke her legs entirely with the force, with taunts from Tohri confirming this meant she wouldn’t walk again. The very next game, Mayu lost a hand to another preemption test; as a group they could supposedly see small events before they happened and prompt movement in a guillotine game, but clearly they failed in this. So it was that the final room’s participants consisted only of Kyoko, Ryouta, Anghel, Sakuya, and Rin, who wasn’t worth much of anything since the room where the threat of drowning had loomed. These progressions took quite a while; many times they were allowed to take a week’s break, staying in nice quarters. It was months before the lab trials neared completion, and despite Sakuya’s insistence that his father would save them, there was no sign of rescue.

The final room had high cielings, and a pedestal in the center where four people were laid upon the ground, who were identified by Tohri’s voice before the standing participants could get a good look, “There lie your fallen friends. Those who were crippled beyond ability to participate; medics saved their lives-”

“And I gave them one final lesson,” Tohri was interrupted as Ryuuji climbed up on the pedestal, “I taught them what we wished to accomplish. Here is Mayu, who protested to the end that what I was doing was wrong… as did Hiyoko and Ayano, even with their moral questionability. And… Hitori Uzune, who we’ve kept unconscious ever since we abducted you. These are our hostages. The five of you… we require that you pool your resources, along with your lost friends’ pure mental power, to break into the morphogenetic field. Access all it has to offer, rather than just random snatches. If you fail… we’ll kill these four!”

Doctor Kawara was just as cheery as he’d ever been, but his words were much worse and struck fear into the hearts of those still standing. They’d been preparing for an ESP event of this scale with every completed test, yes, but the stakes to achieve it being this high? It was something so absolutely terrifying that upon the very moment they were ordered, the five of them lapsed into a trance, and a triumphant grin spread across Ryuuji’s face-

Until the roof was blown up above him. He dove to avoid any shrapnel, giving the saboteur time to lower a ladder. Ryouta looked up to see a familiar face holding it in a helicopter above, smiling down at them but shouting with urgency, “Hurry up! Get up here as quickly as you can or Kawara will kill you!”

The five nodded, and everyone but Sakuya moved to grab one of their unconscious friends before jumping on the ladder. Rather than a show of selfishly leaping to rescue while the others moved to save those he couldn’t he just stood on the ground staring up at this man in awe. He knew this person’s name, yes. He knew a great many things about this person, but had never actually considered that Yuuya Sakazaki might be a real person and not merely a figment of his imagination created in his dreams to plant doubt in his noble lineage.

This stunned expression lasted far too long, even as the last of the others got onto the rope ladder and started climbing, Sakuya was only just shaking off the haze, and that was just enough time. Ryuuji finally finished fumbling around in his lab coat’s many pockets to figure out where he’d hidden his handgun and held it out, firing it straight through the small of Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane’s back and into his gut, the collapse immediate as his blood fell and stained the shining silver metal beneath him and the helicopter pulled away into the night, failure falling onto Yuuya’s shoulders like an over-packed hiking backpack.

The mission was to successfully rescue every esper taken to the testing facility.

Instead, one had died right before his eyes.

And this was what Hitori learned of what had transpired.

A feeling of failure similar to Yuuya’s own, but he had something to do about it.  
Something he could do about it.

This shelter seemed like a great place for espers to live, yes, but not like this. Not injured so badly. Not eyeless, legless, handless, brainless. Not with Isa Souma and Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane both dead at the hand of Ryuuji Kawara. It was these thoughts of creating a time where all these horrible things never happened that motivated Hitori to sneak into Yuuya’s room and find the gun he had there, for missions like the risky rescue from the Takaba facility.

In order to search for a better ending, Hitori pulled the trigger.

-=-=-=-=-


	8. Chapter 8

“So did they end up killing you too?” Isa questioned almost immediately, and Hitori had to wonder how his reaction time was so good. Clearly, he hadn’t just been waiting to say that, since he’d been dead right up until the reset... or perhaps, he had been prepared to speak in the case that a reset happened.

Hitori hesitated; did he explain? No, of course not. It wouldn’t be sensible to do something like that. He didn’t want Isa to think the reset was strictly because of him, after all. A factor in it was of course Isa’s rather brutal murder at the hand of those Takaba employees, but it wasn’t only that which sent Hitori back.

Takaba had left quite the impact on everybody involved, after all. Even during the testing process, there had been more death, and even more injuries. The shelter run by Azami and Leone was a nice place, yes, and Hitori would have liked to stay there; it was far better than his own home. Yet, he couldn’t stand to allow the continued existence of such a miserable timeline. There was better available for all involved, he was sure of it.

“...That’s right. It took a while, but they did,” Hitori started to explain, hugging his knees to his chest and looking up at the ceiling, “They took the others to some testing facility and used me as ransom to get them to cooperate with each other, apparently. I was unconscious the whole time. But then Yuuya Sakazaki helped them escape, so Takaba had no use for me anymore,” It was a lie, but he was awfully good at lying after all these timelines.

Sakazaki... the boy worked with Azami and One’s esper protection program, and had gone undercover with Takaba. This was long before Isa foolishly invited the study to their school, so chances were that Yuuya would still be aware of the world of espers. Hitori contemplated going to talk about himself and Isa, but decided against it. He and Yuuya had gotten along well in the previous timeline, but that was after spending quite a bit of time in that ill-fated elective class together.

“I see... I suppose that wasn’t the most suitable decision, on my part. I merely assumed after a few days of Kawara’s presence here that he was trustworthy, and we paid the price for my foolishness,” Isa sighed, crossing his arms and staring at his own feet, which he’d stretched out in front of him, “I only believed that if he seemed untrustworthy at the start my actions could be canceled, but... had you been kept unconscious and alive until New Year’s Eve, then I would be permanently killed.”

“Yeah...” Hitori nodded slowly, “That’s right. Just because I’m able to undo certain things that happen doesn’t mean it’s completely reliable. If somebody’s aware of my situation they can easily force me into staying alive long enough to lock things into time. So please try not to make too many enemies. The more times I need to save you the more bad luck I apparently accumulate, after all.”

“It’s not like I’m asking you to save me. Besides, I’ve never died before, whereas you’ve died... many times. That’s not something you need to ask of me,” Isa stood up slowly, “I made a mistake that, if not for your ESP, would have cost me my life. Unlike you, my deaths are the sort of thing with permanence. I do need to thank you for allowing me to learn from such a terminal mistake, but I don’t intend to make a habit of such things, for my own sake. I never know when you might not end up saving my life after all...”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Hitori insisted, holding his hands tight against his own chest, “You can’t remember any big tragedies in this town, right? Nothing on the news; no fires, no suicides, nothing like that? Trust me, they’ve happened, but...” He shook his head slowly, “There’s always been, before, a timeline where everything works out. Where I survive to the next year and nothing really horrible happens, and everyone is more or less okay. If it came down to a New Year’s Eve where the timeline was as flawed as that last one, I’d reset on purpose, no matter how close I got or how much I accomplished. I’m sure there’s a right way out there, where everyone’s alive and well by the end of the year...”

“You’re an idealist, Hitori. I’ve read books my entire life. Modern literature to classics, both in Japanese and in English. Textbooks, biographies, fantasy novels, romance novels, even erotica. I may not have social experience but I’m quite well-versed in the world by these books. Most of those fictional books end well, but even I know real life isn’t like that. If you keep trying to save everybody, well, that’s just impossible. We’re high schoolers now, Hitori. Misery is inherent.”

“Well, you’re just a downer. Isn’t that supposed to be my role?” Hitori questioned as he stood up as well. He and Isa were not of a very similar height, although Isa would still be short in comparison to Yuuya; just further accentuating Hitori’s unfortunate lack of height.

“You’re just personally miserable. Look, you resigned yourself to an inability to be happy, so why do you expect that everyone else is capable of it? And for that matter, haven’t you ever read a sci-fi time travel story? Sometimes the universe just wants a certain person dead, and no amount of travelling back in time will stop it. Look, I’m just trying to look out for you. It’s obvious you hate your life, but you’ll just hate it even more if you have to keep reliving it for some idyllic fantasy that everything can turn out okay. Maybe if you weren’t looping so damn often, you’d be happier too.”

“...God, just shut up,” Hitori grumbled, starting to walk away, “Don’t you understand? I don’t care about myself. I’ll gladly give up any chance I have for my own well being if it means I’ll be able to make others safe and happy. But of course you wouldn’t get that. No matter how many of the books you read have self-sacrifice as a theme, you obviously don’t have enough empathy to actually grasp why somebody would do it. I failed to protect my siblings, failed to save Nageki. This life is another chance for me to keep trying until I set things right.”

“You’re the most earnest bitter person I’ve ever met. It’s baffling to see such contrasting traits in a person. Then again, I am attending high school for the sake of socialization,” Isa noted as he caught up to Hitori, “So it’s all for the better that I spend time with somebody like you, whose personality is something entirely unfamiliar to me...”

“You really do have a lot to learn about people, Isa,” Hitori shrugged, turning back to look at him again, “As far as I’ve seen, human nature is to want to protect others or to knock them down. It manifests in different ways, though. I don’t care if nobody knows I ever saved a single life, I just want to see people alive and well. There are people who want to be heroes, who want to be rewarded but nonetheless have the same drive for helping others...” He trailed off, but then regained his composure, “So I guess it just comes down to which one you are, Isa.”

“Does that matter?” Isa questioned softly, stepping up and looking Hitori in the eyes, “Because I don’t know if I’m either yet. If I had to say, I’d tell you that I honestly don’t care at all what happens to anybody else. It doesn’t matter if you or anyone else dies, to me. I don’t want you dead, either. I just don’t care. Until I met you I always thought that everything that happened was set in stone. That it’s impossible to change something once it’s happened, and saving lives is worth nothing because somebody will die if they are meant to die, no more and no less. You can change that, but nonetheless, it’s foolish optimism of you and of anybody else who thinks that the life of an individual is a priority.”

“So what would you do if my ESP suddenly cut out, and I stayed dead?” Hitori questioned, lifting a hand to hold his own arm at his side.

“Then I’d move on. Especially so with you. If an average person is killed, it may be a minor tragedy, if set down in fate... if you believe in that sort of thing. I don’t quite believe in fate, but I do believe that when certain things happen it’s intended by _some_ force in the universe. I do feel that people die when they’re meant to die, be it an accident or by their own mistakes. If you were to die and stay dead, my idea would be confirmed. It would mean that whatever force decided you would have the ability to reverse your death, decided it was time you stayed dead after all.”

“Hm,” Hitori nodded slowly, then frowned as he began to walk again, “You know, Sakazaki once asked me if I ever thought about the timelines that I left behind. Do you think that maybe, when I jump, that timeline’s still left there? And I’m dead there? And what about you? Do you just disappear, or does a version of you stay behind?”

“Those are the sort of questions Kawara could answer for us,” Isa started walking down the stairs, back to the cafeteria, “However, trust me. I won’t be calling him in here again. Not for anyone’s sake but my own, of course. I’m shocked you aren’t angry with me for the betrayal...”

“Well, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, just this once. Everyone else blamed you, so I figured that was enough blaming. I won’t be so easy on you next time you do something stupid, though. It’s growing increasingly obvious that you’re already leaving naivety behind.”

“Of course. I’ve learned quite a bit about social connections from you, Hitori. However, it’s far too intimate for me to call you my only friend. Although you are the only one I am capable of keeping, I believe I should at least make some effort with a different sort of person. What would my mother call you? A... bad influence, I believe. So I’ll be seeing you next time you die, Hitori.”

-=-=-=-=-

Hitori lasted three weeks that time around. He spent that time paying attention to his classes and otherwise doing absolutely nothing of interest. He worked on the weekend with the same flatline level of work as usual, just hard enough to be a valued worker and get away with things, but not so hard he’d get a raise that he would end up discarding when he eventually got killed again.

The only thing of any note in this timeline compared to the others was that somebody called ahead, asking for thirty onigiris; as a convenience store most people thought everything they sold was bought from a manufacturer, but it did actually have a small kitchen where they made their own onigiri, sweet rolls, and iced coffee. The order for 30 onigiris never came to pick them up, so an hour before closing those 30 were added to the display. Nonetheless, Hitori and his coworker for that shift split between them the remaining 26 onigiri, as they only sold them fresh and would otherwise just be discarding the unsold ones, and he then had food to last a few days.

Unfortunately, those few days wouldn’t work out for him. As a result of his time at the shelter, however, he did discover something of interest. He thought it was only his shirt pocket’s contents which could travel with him (and the phone did, indeed) but rather, any pockets on the clothing he was wearing the day of his reset. He’d only assumed it was the shirt pocket only due to the lack of pockets in the pants he wore when he discovered this fact. Therefore, as long as he wore clothes with pockets that were similar to those of his reset day, he could bring anything in those pockets back with him.

Thereby, he had a slight advantage over his utter poverty now. There were two pockets in the pants he had worn on the first day of school. It was only one object per pocket, so all he could really do was put the highest yen bill he had in one of those pockets, and an onigiri in the other (which he would trade out for something else if he found reason) but that was nonetheless better than losing everything when he had to start over; which was soon.

Three weeks after the last reset, actually. He didn’t even reach a month before he found himself back in that corridor, and just as before, Isa spoke almost immediately, “Well, that was awfully quick. I hardly had time to do anything at all. How rude of you, I was just about to score a date with a hot babe.”

“Those words are surreal coming out of your mouth, Isa, stop joking around. Sorry, there was a drunk driver in the crosswalk, and clearly, I got hit hard enough to die,” He shook his head, sighing, “For real, what were you able to accomplish in those three weeks?”

“Absolutely nothing. It’s much more difficult to make friends when we aren’t stuck with each other by the unfortunate laws of the universe that govern a strange mental connection,” Isa shrugged, “Socialization is difficult and I did expect that my efforts were likely going to be fruitless. You only tolerate me because you can’t get rid of me, after all. Don’t fret, I feel the same way towards you. It’s a frankly and simply tolerable experience for the both of us, to be friends.”

“I figured as much. Not that I don’t think you can make friends, of course, but it probably takes a very specific type of person to seriously get along with you. Somebody else as weirdly nihilistic maybe, or somebody who’s just so obliviously optimistic that they can ignore all your strange behaviors,” Hitori offered, standing up much sooner this time around, “I’m sure you’ll find someone. Are you going to try again this timeline?”

“I don’t believe so,” Isa shook his head, standing as well, “After so much social rejection I believe I’d rather spend time with you. So should we, ahem, hang out after school? Sometime soon?”

“If you’d like to, sure,” Hitori shrugged, “It’s not like I really have a life. Not a social life, at least. I work weekends and some afternoons is all, so we’d have to plan around that. How’s Friday afternoon?”

“Friday afternoon seems fine. I have family events to attend to on Sundays myself; speaking of my family, feel free to choose any sort of activity, I’ll be the one paying for it. I take it, that it’s been a long time since you’ve seen a movie in theaters, for example? Whatever the case, as your friend, I’ll treat you to something. That is... how to show kindness towards friends, is it not? Aiding them where you are capable?”

“Hm? Yeah, exactly. I’ll repay the favor if I get the chance. I have been wanting to see the Madoka Magica trilogy... Rebellion gets released next week and the past few timelines, everyone’s been saying how good it is. Premiere is on a Friday, so that could work?” Hitori offered, looking up at the ceiling.

“Yeah, sounds good. This Friday we can watch the first two over at my house. I have a good television, and I’ve been meaning to watch them myself. Don’t worry, my parents won’t care that you’re a grimy mess, they’ll just be glad that I’ve managed to make a friend,” Isa offered.

“Just as tactful as ever, despite the uncharacteristic kindness, hm?” Hitori teased, elbowing him, “That sounds nice, though, as long as you don’t mind letting me in your house. If I’m remembering correctly... your parents are politicians, yes?”

“Yeah. Pretty rich but pretty obnoxious.”

“Like parents like child,” Hitori joked again, then the bell rang, “Shit, we spent too much time talking this time around. Do you have anything to eat for lunch?”

“Hm? No, I always buy lunch. I’ll just go without today,” Isa shrugged, nonchalant as he made his way back to class, Hitori keeping pace with him.

“Nonsense,” Hitori shook his head and pulled the onigiri out of his pocket, holding it out, “Eat something, at least.”

“You do realize how ridiculous you’re being?” Isa questioned, frowning, “You’re being a mother hen to me of all people? Come on. Save that for yourself, you know that I get enough to eat.”

“Well, you don’t seem like it. Just because you can afford to get enough to eat doesn’t mean that you do. Just take it, okay? You seem like the type of person who won’t eat anything in a day unless you’re specifically told to.”

“You’d be right about that, I suppose. We have family dinners at my house during school breaks because otherwise I wouldn’t eat anything...” Isa mumbled, shaking his head, “But I will. Text me, and I’ll eat right away when I get home.”

“I really can’t trust you on that, but I guess there’s no way I could really force you to eat, either...” Hitori sighed, shaking his head, “Fine.”

-

“Uzune,” Hitori was startled in the hallway one day, several months later, by a voice that was familiar to another timeline but that he hadn’t heard at all in this one, “Will you talk to me for a minute?”

“Ueda?” He questioned, whirling around to face her and being confronted indeed by her sweet, smiling face, “What’s going on? Did you forget the homework in music or something?” Seeing as she was an upperclassman, elective block was the only time that the two of them ever really saw each other.

“Huh? No, of course not! Can’t a girl just want to talk to her adorable kouhai? Jeez...” She sighed, shaking her head and raising a hand up in the air loosely, “I want to talk to you about Isa Souma, actually. You’ve been spending a lot of time with him lately. Like, a lot. You went to his house on April 6th, then on the 13th you went to one of the first showings of Puella Magi Madoka Magica Rebellion. The 20th, you went to his house again, on the 27th you loitered around at a fast food place for three hours...”

“Whoa, hold up a second,” Hitori raised his hands in front of him defensively, looking up at her with scrutiny, “How do you know all these things, Ueda? What’s going on?”

“Well, how I know them really isn’t important. What’s important is that I do know them. I know that you’re spending all your Friday afternoons with Isa Souma, and do you know what people do on Friday nights? They go on dates. Are you dating Isa Souma, Uzune...?” Something in the way she asked this was intimidating, her eyes boring into him.

“What? No, of course not. We’re just hanging out as friends, but even if we were dating, what does that matter to you?” Hitori retorted, and Ayano backed off a bit, blushing.

“Ah, well, uh, you see! It doesn’t, really, I was just curious, that’s all! I want to know my really cute kouhai is up to, haha! That’s it!” She protested, waving her hands in front of herself, “Thanks for answering me, Uzune! Oh, is it okay if I call you Hitori, maybe? Ahh, I mean, it’s fine if I can’t but I’d really like to-”

“Whatever,” Hitori shrugged, “I’m beyond caring what people do with my name. If you want others to think that you and I are close, who am I to deny you that? It doesn’t really matter to me.”

“Are you saying that you’d be okay with spending more time with me? Actually becoming close, for real? Is that what you’re saying, Hitori?” She suddenly sounded really excited, but he just kept up a blank stare right back at her.

“Sure,” He nodded, then turned and walked away, a bit confused by the encounter but feeling altogether nonthreatened. Or at least, he did feel that way, until the next morning when he arrived at the school only to see police cars there. Two months into the timeline, and something involving the police was going on? How exhausting.

However, it was even more exhausting when he actually walked through the door and immediately saw the caution tape that was strung across the main stairwell of the building, and the blood that stained those stairs which were being blocked off. Before anybody could stop him he ran over to try and get a glimpse at the crime scene, seeing there, midway up the stairs, Isa’s dead body.

Not this shit again. Then again, this was only the second time Isa had died in one of Hitori’s timelines, so maybe it wasn’t actually such an annoyance. There were bound to be more, anyway. With an infinite number of possibilities, the death of somebody who was actually involved with him on a regular basis shouldn’t have been such a monumental event.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t really operate on those thoughts, nor could he slide aside any emotions he had with the consolation to himself that such an incident could just be undone. Even with the knowledge that this death wasn’t permanent, he felt tears rolling down his cheeks for a few moments before fury took over, pulling a knot tight in his stomach.

Hitori couldn’t say that he didn’t have a temper. In fact, he had to say that he would actually be considered quite the vengeful person. He remembered, from Nageki’s perspective, the sort of things he’d done after Isa had previously been one of the people responsible for Nageki’s suicide. It was funny, then, that he would now feel the same sort of rage over Isa’s death, but that past was long forgiven in his mind.

Not that he ever would have forgiven Isa in that life, but that he had been forgiven by Nageki in one of the many paths of this life, let him put that fury away. Besides, it wasn’t like Isa was the only one responsible, either. Just one singular focus that could keep him from vowing revenge on the entire research team. And now, he wanted revenge. The blood pooling made it obvious, and a closer examination could even show Hitori what the wound was which had brought an end to his friend.

A knife. This was murder, and he knew just who had done it. She’d seemed harmless yesterday, but it was obvious now that he should have been terrified with the way she’d been acting. She just wanted to figure out if her crush was taken, and he’d given her too much ambiguity. Or perhaps she was aware that Isa was only a friend, but with her perceived new chance at romance, wanted to be rid of anybody who may have been in her way. Whatever the reason, Hitori was pissed.

However, he had no idea of how to find her. Where could she possibly even be? He couldn’t very well tell the police that he knew who the murderer was, and that it was his jealous upperclassman with a crush on him; that sounded like something straight out of some shitty anime, there’s no way they’d believe him if he said that. Besides, he didn’t want to get all wrapped up in police business anyway.

If he could find her... if he could find her... well, then what? He wasn’t quite sure what his intentions were. He’d say to kill her, but he was well aware that he wasn’t really capable of murdering somebody. Through Nageki’s eyes he knew the sort of things he’d done to try and get revenge, only to fail in the last moments to kill Isa and retrieve Nageki’s only remaining physical matter, his liver, from inside of his now-upperclassman Ryouta... told to give it up by Nageki, yes, but hardly committed in the first place when it came down to the moment.

If he was really going to be able to do it, after all, he wouldn’t have stalled so much, spoke so much, said so many empty threats. He would have just done it. He’d done horrible things. Identity theft, and... technically murder, but that wasn’t by his own hands. Maybe he would have succeeded at killing Isa back in that life, if he’d found some way to poison him, if he could rest in the same notch of guilt he’d had with Kazuaki, watching his target cause their own death. Not by his hand. Not by his hand. Just by his word. To directly murder somebody was far out of his abilities...

So just what would he even do when he found Ayano? He had no idea, and he still hadn’t decided when he was pulled out of his thoughts by the sight of her, standing in the far end of the corridor where he always appeared after a reset. She turned and smiled at him, holding the murder weapon in her left hand, completely covered in blood, “Hi, Hitorin,” Her words were playful, and her face matched, but her tone sounded dead.

“Ueda...” He muttered, stepping closer to her. Something about her bloodstained skin and uniform, standing far through that corridor with the light of the bridge over the main hallway illuminating her back, she seemed somehow unreal.

“You’re angry at me, aren’t you? You’re furious beyond belief, that I killed Isa, but I promise you that it isn’t what you think, okay?” She spoke in such a monstrous little voice that somehow, despite her current appearance, Hitori couldn’t help but feel she was somehow frail, “Isn’t it funny? I’m the only person you told before you reset. You said you wanted to save Isa’s life, and save Sakuya even though you never even met him. Give Hiyoko her eyes again, me my legs, Mayu her hand... Rin, his sanity. You wanted to help me. And knowing that... I killed Isa, and threw these two months away.”

“...Ayano?” He changed to her first name; if this was the Ayano of that timeline, then he had no reason to distance himself from her, although he was confused as to how he could possibly be speaking to her.

“I killed Isa Souma in revenge. That’s what. I didn’t remember a lot of that timeline, though, until I saw his corpse. It was a horribly familiar sight. I wanted to see him dead for his betrayal, forgetting I already had... and when I did see him, again, I remembered all the rest from that timeline. I guess that’s something about me, isn’t it? That I just know things... doesn’t just include things from the timeline I’m in.”

“But... how is that possible?” Hitori questioned, biting down on his lip and taking another step towards her.

“It’s simple, isn’t it? Kawara explained it. Linear consciousness. Even though we haven’t even reached the month that those things happened, this is really... three weeks and two months after you reset that time, isn’t it? Time keeps going, even if the whole world goes backwards. Through the morphogenetic field, we can unlock the doors that lie between us and that time,” She dropped her knife to the ground, something that Hitori was sure she’d never do from the few timelines he’d personally known her in (there were a couple back in middle school, but none that became history) and lifted her arms up to her sides, “And I did. I did, and I threw it away. I’ve ruined my chances at life, and ended Isa’s, two things you wanted to fix...”

“Ayano-”

“I know you’re going to go back for him. It’s obvious. I have no idea if any other versions of me will ever gain the knowledge I did in this timeline... so I’m going to tell you, since I know you’ll remember. When I almost died in that facility, Doctor Kawara gave me one more lesson,” She dropped her arms again and stared down at the floor, at her knife, “Which was what exactly they wanted to accomplish with those tests. He called it... A shattering of the collective linear consciousness.”

“What the Hell is that supposed to mean?” Hitori questioned, taking one more step towards her.

“Those limitations, about only moving into future timelines, only taking information from previous timelines... and only accessing the morphogenetic field occasionally, he wanted to destroy them. He wanted to turn us into tools for knowing all the secrets of the world. To have all the world’s knowledge, past present and future, at our fingertips...”

“That’s what he was trying to do? Leone told me-”

“Leone wasn’t wrong. Those were goals of theirs. By accomplishing this goal, they’d achieve all of those,” She frowned and turned to lock eyes with Hitori, “Doctor Kawara is your enemy. As are Alphonse Alkan and Tohri Nishikikouji, and anybody else who works with Takaba labs. Hitori, your ability to reset upon death is completely unique. The one second that we were able to see into the morphogenetic field in full view told us that much.”

“It’s... unique?” Hitori questioned, freezing where he stood now, just a bit away from Ayano.

“Completely. Every other ESP ability that’s been observed has at least another user somewhere in the world, but not yours, Hitori. That’s the thing. Of course it had to go to someone like you,” A small smile broke out across her face, “I always thought you were powerful, but I interpreted that wrong. It was in that timeline when I learned how you really are, not the sort of guy I’d fall for at all, but it made me like you even more somehow... of course, somebody who wants to save everybody is the perfect person to have the unique ability to decide which history is final and set in stone...”

“That’s assuming I survive far enough into a particular timeline to make it history...” He mumbled.

“That’s true,” Ayano nodded slowly, bending over and picking her knife back up, but not standing up again, “You won’t hear this sort of thing from me again, Hitori. After all, if I remember the same things, I’ll also remember telling you. Next time you see me, I’ll be just as much of a pain as always, you know? But, nonetheless, I don’t think any of us want a history like this one,” And, with that word, she wrapped her hands around the knife’s hilt and plunged it through Hitori’s chest, gently, but not so slowly that he’d be in pain the entire time.

-=-=-=-=-  
“Lesson for the future. Avoid Ayano Ueda,” This time Hitori was the first one to speak after the reset, turning to look Isa in the eyes, “Understand? We both will. She killed me too. If I don’t talk to her, though, we’ll be fine. She won’t have such a big crush on me if she never gets to know me at all. I shouldn’t have chatted with her during music class.”

“Understood. To think that a run of two months would be so swiftly ruined by that girl... I should think I’ll have no problem with avoiding her in all future timelines. However, it may also be suitable that we do not spend quite as much time together...”

“I agree. Well... here’s to another timeline?” Hitori asked simply, pulling out the single cigarette he’d stuck in his pocket that morning for lack of anything more suitable and placing it between his lips.

“Hear, hear,” Isa nodded, pulling out his matches and striking one to light Hitori’s cigarette for him.


	9. Chapter 9

“Hitori Uzune? Fancy seeing you here!” A while after the beginning of the most recent timeline, Hitori was approached by Yuuya while at work once more; during the very same shift that they’d met in the timeline where Takaba Labs had come to the school, though Hitori brushed it off as a coincidence. Yuuya just happened to go to the convenience store during summer break, nothing more and nothing less.

“Hm?” Hitori asked, looking up from what he was stocking; iced coffee cans in a cooler this time, rather than potato chips on a dry shelf, “Yeah, this is where I work. Can I help you?”

“I just thought it was a little uncommon for a first year to have a job. Are you trying to save for anything?” Yuuya asked, bending down to make the conversation a bit less awkward, though it didn’t do much to break the height difference. Maybe if Hitori was standing, they’d be around eye level, “A date with somebody, perhaps?”

“That is why first years usually get jobs, but no. This isn’t a temp job, I’ve worked here for about a year,” He shrugged, standing up and closing the cooler in the process, “I need the money.”

“By any chance, does that mean that you aren’t living with your family?” Yuuya questioned, then blinked and raised his hands up in front of himself, “Oh, I apologize, I don’t mean to pry! I’m simply interested in you, as a classmate. I’m impressed, that you’re not a truant in the process!”

“Hm? Oh,” Hitori nodded. He almost forgot he hadn’t skipped school at all this timeline, “Well they don’t want my studies slipping so they only schedule me when I haven’t got school. I’d take more hours, but they won’t give any to me.”

“Oh, I see!” Yuuya nodded, straightening up and looking around the store, “You know, I came here to get something for lunch, but now that I’m here I realize I haven’t the faintest idea of what’s good at this place... What sort of sandwiches are nice here?”

“Well the sandwiches are all prepacked, but I think that the chicken one is nice. It’s a cutlet inside a roll with some lettuce and teriyaki mayonnaise, and it’s not too expensive. Sometimes I’ll buy one for myself,” Hitori offered, finding the conversation a bit too similar to the one he and Yuuya had here before.

“Buy one for yourself? Why, you can’t get free food for working here?” He sounded surprised as he walked over to the sandwich case.

“Not really. Only onigiri, since we sell those fresh, if I’m working closing I can take the leftovers home with me,” Hitori explained as he returned to the register, “So, no, I can’t get you a discount either, if that’s what you were asking.”

“Oh no, no need for that!” Yuuya shook his head, grinning, “My dad may not be rich, but we’re well enough off I don’t need discounts on convenience store food or anything!”

“...Did you know that I worked here?” Hitori asked suddenly, though his voice was flat and casual. He was only curious.

“Ahh... I’ll admit, yes. Someone at school mentioned it to me. I believe it was Ueda? I haven’t the faintest clue of how she knew, but I supposed that if I showed up here during a dead time it might be a good way to start a conversation with you!” He explained, taking two of the sandwich to the counter, “I’ve wanted to befriend you for some time now, but I could never think of how to approach you, eheh!”

“Why would you ever want to do that?” Hitori glanced at the double sandwiches, “Two sandwiches. You’re hungry?”

“No, one of them is for you!” Yuuya waved his hands in the air with that same goofy smile, “You said you liked them, after all! Ahh... I suppose you just intrigue me? Something about you seems very interesting! Not to mention that as anyone in school can tell you, I do have a weakness for the good-looking...”

Hitori blinked at Yuuya with a blank look before reaching over and ringing up the sandwiches, “Would you like yours warmed up?”

“Yes please! So, you don’t know how to respond to compliments? That’s fine, of course. Compliments are easy to give and hard to receive, wouldn’t you say?” Yuuya questioned, leaning forward on the counter and Hitori just glared back at him as he put the sandwich in the toaster oven.

“Sure, I guess,” Hitori shrugged, looking Yuuya over with a bit more scrutiny, “Well, I can’t deny you’re rather attractive yourself, but I’m sure you hear that all the time. I’m still confused as to why you care so much about talking to me,” He could understand Yuuya’s kindness towards him when they shared that unique elective, but... in this timeline, the two hadn’t ever talked. Was Yuuya’s interest in Hitori of the past timeline actually a result of even earlier interactions than the reset point? But how was that possible, if Yuuya only transferred to the school system for high school this year?

“Well, I suppose...” Yuuya stood up straight again, suddenly serious, “It has to do with the way I perceive you. You seem to me like somebody who really cares about others, but you don’t care about yourself. At least, that’s the impression I get. Like you’re somebody who’d give up your life for somebody else... anybody else’s sake. Or maybe for nobody’s sake at all. I’d like to prevent that, Uzune.”

“Wha...?” Hitori stared at him in confusion. That answer was... different than he expected. Vastly different.

“That isn’t what you thought I’d say, is it? But I’m not quite as foolish as I may seem, really!” He chuckled a bit, raising a finger in the air and looking Hitori right in the eyes, “I want to do all that I can to help and protect the people in my life, even if they’re only my acquaintances! It’s easy to tell that you’re... not a happy or stable person. So even if it’s yourself I need to protect you from, I most certainly will do so!”

“...I’m not exactly the right sort of person to try protecting, Sakazaki,” Hitori sighed, turning to take the sandwich back out of the toaster now that it’s beeped, “I can’t really explain, but my life is sort of... especially dangerous. Look, I really don’t want to sound emo or anything, but it’s definitely for the best you just try not to care about me.”

“That’s a bit of a ridiculous request,” Yuuya sighed, shaking his head as he took the sandwich, “Because I’m afraid I’ve already gotten attached to you! Isn’t that unfortunate? You’ll just have to especially careful now, so as not to break my poor heart!”

“Please enjoy your sandwich,” Hitori mumbled, changing the topic once more, and Yuuya just deflated a bit, his shoulders slumping.

“Ah, I suppose I really can’t convince you, can I? Oh well. Someday, Uzune! I’ll make you fall for me yet!” He joked, giving Hitori a wink as he left the store. Once Yuuya was completely gone, Hitori groaned and fell over forward onto the counter, though he picked himself back on and put on a fake, peppy, customer-service smile just as soon as someone else walked into the store.

It was only when his shift was over that he realized that there was definitely something in his own fake happiness that mirrored Yuuya’s tone and actions. Was Yuuya Sakazaki... faking it? Hitori wasn’t sure when he’d get the chance to ask, but he was sure that, at least in this timeline, he’d get an answer if he did.

Unfortunately, his next opportunity would be when summer break ended and school started up again, a day that Hitori simply wouldn’t see. A storm started up while he was walking home, and even he wasn’t quite sure what hit him when he woke up in the hallways.

-=-=-=-=-

“Killed during summer break? This is getting ridiculous,” Isa sighed the moment they were back. Hitori had no idea how he always managed to speak so soon after being reset, especially given that unlike Hitori, he had no way of knowing when one was about to occur.

“It’s not my fault. It was really annoying, actually. Something in a storm killed me on my way home from work... I wanted to talk to Sakazaki about something the next day, but I guess I lost that opportunity when I, you know, died.”

“Sakazaki? I thought we agreed not to speak to anybody about the events of that timeline, which would include our knowledge of other espers in the building...” Isa questioned, narrowing his eyes and leaning forward to look Hitori in the eyes, “So, do tell.”

“It had nothing to do with ESP,” Hitori leaned back, shaking his head, “We happened to run into each other and have a chat, then I realized that he might be faking his demeanor. I wanted to ask him about that. He was concerned about me, being a sad person, but what if he was also one himself?”

“What if he was?” Isa’s tone was flat, and uncaring, “I thought you would know better by now, than to try caring about somebody in a timeline which is clearly doomed. All of these are. I told you before, Hitori. It doesn’t matter what happens to anybody else. Just keep going till you hit a new checkpoint.”

“And I told you before, that I can’t do that,” Hitori groaned, scowling at Isa, “We’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’m sure that I can help people and still survive, in some timeline out there.”

“I do doubt that,” Isa frowned, “But feel free to be foolish.”

-=-=-=-

It was only a few days that time. Hitori attempted to get in contact with Yuuya, not to ask that question he had, but just to try and become acquainted with him again. Perhaps it was some sort of worry that drove him, though he couldn’t explain it. It seemed to him that maybe Yuuya was somebody who he should know, somebody who could sympathize with his idealist ways far more than Isa.

Even if the friendship would only be temporary, it was still something. Hitori wasn’t sure why he cared so much about finding a friend other than Isa, but the desire to be in contact with Yuuya Sakazaki was one that he couldn’t deny. Unfortunately, for the following days, Yuuya was absent from school. Hitori soon learned it was the result of a stomach bug which was making its way throughout the building, and also knew that he was doomed.

A 48 hour bug was something that he could in no way survive; he was already malnourished, though what really got him was the dehydration. He couldn’t even keep water down, and with his body as weak as it already was, he unfortunately succumbed as the only casualty in the school from this bout of norovirus.

-=-=-=-=-

“That was horribly unfortunate,” Isa spoke, once more, moments after the two found themselves back in the hallway, “You only made it a few days that time. I do hope that doesn’t become some sort of trend...”

“Me too...”Hitori groaned, holding his head, “God, I really hope nothing like that happens again. That’s by far the most unpleasant way I’ve died yet...”

“I was lucky enough to dodge the illness. I wonder how it became such an epidemic? I don’t believe anybody caught it at all in any prior timelines...” Isa frowned, looking away, “I suppose that you really were right, about nothing being the same between them...”

“What, it took you this long to realize?” Hitori scoffed, “Of course nothing is the same. You heard what Doctor Kawara said... we’re jumping to the nearest timeline that had the same events up to this point, not rewinding the same timeline over and over,” He sighed, “There’s so many factors that we don’t have any influence on.”

“I see...” Isa sighed, leaning back against the wall, “I suppose that does put a damper on things. I was under the impression we could at least handle things on some level, but... now that I think about it, that storm which killed you was by no means a human factor...”

“Yeah,” Hitori rolled his eyes, “And you wonder why I keep dying. No matter how careful I am, something always seems to come along to ruin it for me.”

“Well, eventually it’ll work out. At least, I hope so,” Isa shrugged, picking at his nails, “Being stuck in an eternal time-loop would be incredibly bothersome, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it sure would be nice if you could find some way to not get stuck coming back with me. It’s obnoxious enough, to experience it myself. Sorry you need to deal with it too,” Hitori leaned back with a groan, “It’s twice as bad when I have to feel guilty for halting you in your tracks too, every time I die.”

“You really do die a terribly common amount,” Isa stood up, “I’m beginning to doubt it will even be possible for you to reach the point in time which is necessary...” He frowned, “And, will this continue through our entire lives, should we reach this... new checkpoint, as you say? The idea that we will be tethered together from now until eternity... Well, unless you were to reach a checkpoint with me dead.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Hitori shook his head, “I’ll probably need all the help I can get, to live that long. I died far too soon after your death, in those timelines where you were killed. I was unconscious for a long time, but I’ll discard that, since there wasn’t any way I could have died at that point... and when Ayano murdered you, she killed me the very next day.”

“I can’t help but feel there’s something which you aren’t telling me, but I suppose that’s fine. I don’t believe dying permanently would be very pleasant, and besides,” He turned and gave Hitori a flat look, “Stuck in time together, for all eternity, really does sound romantic, doesn’t it?” He then shut his eyes and chuckled a bit, “Just kidding. I could never fall in love with you, Hitori.”

-=-=-=-=-  
“What the Hell, Isa...” Hitori grumbled as soon as he got back, lifting his head to glare directly into those violet eyes which now looked so condescending.

‘What the Hell, what, Hitori?” He questioned, a smirk coming across his face as he stared down his unfortunate companion in timelooping, “You’ll have to be a little more specific than that, you know.”

“You killed yourself!” He threw a hand out to the side and moved closer, getting up in Isa’s face, with his volume increasing as he went, “So answer me! What the Hell was that about!?”

“How do you know that I killed myself?” Isa questioned, remaining levelheaded and not even flinching as he was yelled at.

“Ryouta found your body hanging in the drum closet during music. I think that makes it fairly obvious how you died,” Hitori groaned, then sat back, “Why would you do something like that?”

“It could have been Ayano,” Isa mentioned, then held up a finger as Hitori was about to go off on him again for lying, “But I suppose I should stop leading you around in circles and fess up, shouldn’t I? It’s simple. It was a scientific effort, Hitori. I was testing a theory I had.”

“What theory?” He questioned, yes, but he was pretty sure he already knew what Isa was going to say next.

“It’s simple, isn’t it? The theory that you’ve been killing yourself in timelines where I’ve died. There’s nothing you can say to prevent me from believing this, of course, I’ve already proved myself right. That’s... touching, almost,” He chuckled, standing up and starting to walk away, but then turned halfway back, “Why, Hitori?”

“Why?” He questioned back, then frowned, “You wouldn’t want to hear it.”

“Oh, but I do.”

“Fine, just don’t go off on me again for being idealistic. I’m sure there’s a timeline where you live. I couldn’t just let one where you died continue to exist like that,” Hitori explained, and the smirk fell from Isa’s face.

“I guess you were right after all,” He groaned, rolling his eyes, “I thought I could have had some fun taunting you, when you admitted to having a crush on me, but I suppose that simply isn’t true. Well, anyway, I think it’s for the best we spend some time apart again, this timeline. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yeah...” Hitori nodded slowly as he watched Isa go, then stood up himself and went down to the lunchroom. He was disappointed in himself, for not thinking ahead better, and didn’t have the most useful things he could have in his pockets. He’d reacted nearly impulsively, going to reset the timeline just as soon as he processed what he’d heard about the body found in the music room. Why was that? Was it eally so important to him that Isa survive?

Maybe he did have a crush? However, he wasn’t sure if he could have any certainty on that matter. He’d certainly never been romantically involved with anybody before; it was too tough, to get tied up with somebody who’d disappear as soon as he encountered another all-too-likely demise. However, maybe... Well, Isa didn’t disappear each time Hitori died, but he was still insufferable. So Hitori made up his mind.

If Isa asked him out, then what was the harm in saying yes? And if Isa didn’t, no harm done. Hitori really was the sort to please everybody. He wasn’t even attracted to Isa, but well, it was the least he could do given that he was the reason that Isa wouldn’t be able to date anybody else. So he’d be willing to fill that role, if necessary. It was the decent thing to do. At least, as long as this timeline went on, Hitori wouldn’t have to worry about that. The time-travelling duo had decided to go their separate ways... For now.

Hitori took up life as usual. Working at the convenience store, avoiding people that were statistically more prone to harm him than they would be if this were the only timeline; the standard routine. Hitori was starting to get used to this, unsure if he would ever be able to move forward with his life at this rate. Everything got worse each time he died, and it seemed it would take some momentous event to break this inescapable stack of bad luck. 

He made it through summer break again. One more month past that, keeping to himself. He didn’t talk to anyone, not really. Ayano asked him out, but he let her down easy and because there was nobody to throw her jealousy at, it ended peacefully. All in all, the timeline was a relaxing one. He didn’t have anything to worry about, it was a break from the usual chaos.

He spotted Isa walking through the halls with Ryouta, and thought nothing of it. Why should he? If anything, he was glad that Isa was branching out and befriending others. Perhaps, he thought, a timeline like this one would be the answer. If the one bound to him in space-time took some distance away from him, maybe it could break the luck and let him survive, just until New Year’s? He did it once, in a timeline that couldn’t be allowed to continue. It was close.

If he’d stayed unconscious any longer, he wouldn’t have been able to turn back the clock and prevent those injuries, the death, all the misery that timeline brought with it while he slumbered carelessly under the effect of Takaba’s drugs.

One week after Hitori saw Isa in the hallway with Ryouta, he saw something else which was much more unsettling. It was after school, out in the parking lot. Other students had dispersed by now, as had the teachers, which was surreal. Odd, to see only one car in the parking lot. In a daze, he walked up to the mid-level of the lot where the car was parked, and found himself staring into a pair of red eyes, stunned for only a few moments before Ryuuji Kawara continued what he was doing in disregard of Hitori’s presence.

He tossed a sack... Not a sack, not quite. It looked more like a bodybag, into his trunk, and he grinned into the car as he tapped the air freshener attached to the door on the boot, and spoke in a way that was hardly audible but clearly intended for Hitori to hear, if just barely, “You smell that, Isa? That’s the smella’ Christmas,” He grinned, looked at Hitori again, then got into the seat of his vehicle. Backed out, made a U-Turn, and hit him.

Hitori wished he’d died on impact.

Instead, it took him two immobile hours to bleed out.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“...” Isa didn’t speak this time, just staring Hitori down. Did he know, that Hitori knew? He stayed silent, not betraying if he had that knowledge, till Isa finally said something, “Another accident, Hitori? Good Grief. You were doing so well that time, too...”

“Ah...” He gave a nervous smile and rubbed the back of his neck, “Seems like it,” That wasn’t totally a lie, anyway. His death was technically a car accident, in loose terms, thus, an accident. If Isa was unaware that Hitori knew he’d been tossed into a trunk, and wasn’t going to mention it, then Hitori wouldn’t bring the matter up, “Sorry if you were enjoying yourself...”

“Ryouta Kawara is a fascinating person, but I’m not going to befriend him again. It was a bit of a hassle... Besides, Hitori, you’re all the companionship I really need,” The edge of his lip curled up and he closed his eyes, holding one hand to his cheek, “I thought it over, and eternity with you isn’t... so awful.”

“Well...” Hitori shrugged, looking away, “If you say so-”

“And, you know, I said that I wouldn’t fall in love with you, but there is something about the concept of being stuck in a timeloop for all eternity, yes?” He questioned, then moved closer to Hitori, “And if you’re all I have to learn about social conventions, then it only makes sense that I learn romance through my interactions with you as well.”

“I guess that’s fine,” Hitori had already resolved himself to this possibility after all, so he was okay with it. Not ecstatic, but okay. It was an obligation in the situation, after all. He’d come to terms with that.

“And, you know Hitori, I was taught something,” He moved even closer and pressed a hand against Hitori’s chest, “I was taught a thing or two, about what people do when they’re romantic with each other. By a very good teacher, you know,” He looked into Hitori’s eyes, and his own seemed dull, empty, “So you’ll let me do this, won’t you... Hitori? We are stuck with each other, after all,” He slid his hand down till he pressed against the lower edge of Hitori’s binder, “You’ll let me have a little fun?”

It was in that timeline which Hitori finally understood, why it was that Isa was his biggest fear. He was killed. He was killed by Isa, in that past life, after years of misery. Years of... This sort of thing. Obligations. It was always an obligation, wasn’t it? He hurt Isa. He harmed him, in some way, so it was only right that he let him do whatever he wanted in return, yes? If Isa asked, if he asked in that way, then how could Hitori refuse without seeming heartless?

It was his own fault, that Isa was in that chair. He could take responsibility, right?

No, no, that was the past. It was different now. It was his own fault that Isa was caught in a timeloop. He could take responsibility.

Right?

It wasn’t as if he fought him. He couldn’t, not after the whole situation was because of him, yet... Hitori still felt awful. Felt destroyed by the old memories and the new experience, and he was even more stunned as he wandered out of the school than he was when he saw Ryuuji Kawara in the parking lot. It made sense, of course it did, in a way. He was a pointless figure in Isa’s life, tied to him.

After an experience which left a guy like that feel powerless, he’d take his power back any way he could, wouldn’t he? And Hitori was convenient. He was easy to guilt-trip and easy to use, and-

“Uzune?” A voice caught his awareness, pulling him just the smallest bit out of his fog. That voice belonged to none other than Yuuya Sakazaki once more, “Are you... Okay? You don’t look very good... Do you need some help?”

“...I’m fine.”

Maybe this time, maybe this time it would be permanent.

Maybe now he’d finally die.


End file.
